Switched Journey
by TheRealEvanSG
Summary: One boy wakes up to find himself marooned on a deserted mountain island with one tree, bearing one fruit. One gang of unruly slave catchers happens upon him and one crew that is destined to rock the world unintentionally rescues him. One thing is for sure... this is going to be one hell of a story! -An SI
1. So We Begin Again

Chapter 1 - So We Begin Again

A rough surface.

Warm, salty and fresh air.

The distant cawing of seagulls.

The gentle, arhythmic lapping of waves.

These were the feelings, smells, and sounds my dreary brain interpreted as I pulled away from the addictive drug of sleep. I groaned, my eyes squeezed shut to spite the light I could feel beating down on them. My back was stiff, like I had been sleeping on the floor, and it didn't feel like my bed beneath me. It felt like something hard, uneven, and a little slanted.

Wait, what? My eyes snapped open.

"OW! MOTHERFUCKER!" I cursed, wincing and immediately shutting them as extremely bright light immediately poured into them, almost blinding me. Spots pirouetted and spun in my once-more darkened vision, and my eyes watered from the unexpected albeit slight pain. Wondering why the hell I was sleeping on something hard and in a place that was all lit up, I slowly, carefully opened my eyes, squinting to adjust to the light.

Wait. Why did that look like bright blue sky above me, with white wisps of clouds?

And now that I thought about it, why did the air smell salty, like the ocean?

I opened my eyes wider and sat up, suddenly fully awake.

Perched on the side of a mountain for some odd reason, my pajama-clad self had somehow found its way outside and in front of a wide, vast ocean, the sun hanging hot and proud high above me. A roost of seagulls sat on a stony beach on the bottom of the mountain, pecking away at some fish. Out in the distance on the water, a dolphin poked out of the water and gracefully leaped through the air before splashing back down, nose-first, beneath the waves.

I stared.

"Weird dream," I said at last, and promptly fell back asleep, determined to wake up in my own bed even though this felt much more real than anything I'd ever dreamed before.

An unknown number of hours later, I woke up again, to the exact same sensations, and when I opened my eyes, the exact same sights greeted me.

Mind racing a million miles an hour, I opened my mouth, words forming and dying on my lips.

I closed my mouth for several minutes.

"...Well, that's just peachy," I rasped, voice not yet adjusted to being awake. There was no question about what had just happened to me overnight. I mean, come on. Some anime and video game nerd falls asleep, and wakes up in a completely unfamiliar place? It's a classic symptom of isekaitis; a disease which, unfortunately, tissues don't really help much with. The only real issue was whether I was in a world nobody had ever thought of before or if I had somehow been plopped into the middle of an already-existing series.

And judging by the smell of the sea and the fact that, as far as I could tell, this mountain and beach seemed to be an island…

Well, I'd read and written enough fanfiction to at least have a decent idea of where I was if I'd been dropped into an already-existing series. Hoping to the God I didn't believe in that I was wrong, my mind raced through a million thoughts. What was going to happen to me? Was this really real? How was I supposed to live here when, at least at first glance, I couldn't see any food or fresh water sources at all? What was I supposed to DO?

I mean, what the hell does one do when they wake up in what's probably the middle of the ocean on a mountainous island?

_Civilization_.

The first thing that I absolutely had to do was search for civilization. Gulping, I quickly scanned the side of the mountain and the flat parts of the beach.

A big, fat nothing. There wasn't even smoke that I could see on the other side of the mountain!

What _could_ I see?

Grey rocks. Lots of them. And, actually, a part of some large animal skeleton half exposed in a cliff-face, rather interestingly. I wondered what kind of animal it was, whether it was a dinosaur or something, then realized my brain was getting side-tracked and started scouting the territory again.

The only living thing other than the seagulls that I could see was a single, large tree of an unrecognizable species that grew straight out from the beach below me and to the right. It was huge, probably taller than most oak trees, and a tangled mess of branches with weird white-and-grey leaves stuck out of it. I wondered what whacky evolution had resulted in it having _white-and-grey_ leaves.

Oh well. At the very least, there might be fruit growing on it, fruit that was hopefully edible. Panicking from being stranded on a probably deserted island overnight makes a poor guy ravenous! And if not… well, at the very least, it would provide me with a source of shade to sit under while I tried to figure out what the hell to do next. With a determined frown, I immediately began running down the slope of the mountain.

~o~

Ow. _Owwww_. My _damn legs_!

Note to self… get the hell in shape!

Running down the mountain was a task and a half. The last time I'd done any sort of cardiovascular exercise in any decent amount had been five years ago in my sophomore year of high school, and that had been due to my mom attempting to force me into it. "You need more exercise!" she had constantly nagged at me. "Your muscles are going to atrophy from sitting around and watching movies and shows all day!" I'd relented for the first two years of high school, then put me foot down and refused to rejoin the team on the third year and had returned to my casual lifestyle since; a fact I now sorely regretted.

My legs burned. My chest heaved like I'd ran a marathon (and yes, I knew exactly what that felt like, unfortunately). Every part of my body was caked in sweat. Even though I was pretty slim and only weighed in at about 140 pounds, my body was not used to this level of stress.

Allowing myself a moment to bask in the shade of the tree, I let my heart's pounding in my chest slow down to more of a normal pace. When I could finally breathe as usual, I wiped the sweat from my forehead and looked up again.

I had finally reached the tree, after probably an hour and a half of running down a rocky slope barefoot (fuck me with a chainsaw; I hadn't even been allowed to take shoes with me!). Wincing as I shifted my center of balance onto a tender spot where I'd scored myself a shallow cut on my foot - _hooray_ \- my eyes searched through the strangely colored leaves of the tree.

Although the damn thing was mostly barren, there was one piece of fruit hanging on the lowest branch tantalizingly… if you could call the sensation you get when you turn the corner and just _know_ someone holding a dagger is going to be there "tantalizing." The second I saw it, my worst fears were confirmed.

A shaky breath drew out of my lungs, which had suddenly clamped up even harder than when I'd done my unplanned workout for the day.

I'll give you three guesses as to what it was, and the first two don't count.

"That's a really large blueberry," I gulped dumbly.

That was my first thought when I saw the indigo Devil Fruit.

My second thought was, _Do blueberries grow on trees? I thought they only grow on vines._ Then I felt rather like an idiot. That was obviously a Devil Fruit. No other fruit I knew had bulbs that big and swirls on them. Devil Fruits didn't care where the fuck they grew. Normal botany rules couldn't apply for them.

"Okay, okay, okay, okay," I breathed hoarsely. Fear crept up my skin, along with a sudden blast of cold understanding. "Let's review the facts. I go to sleep. Wake up on a mountain island. There's a tree right in front of me whose only fruit is a _Devil Fruit_. So… if classic tropes remain at play… after I eat this fruit, whatever powers it grants, and test it out a little bit, the Straw Hats will come along and save me. Right?"

Right!?

I really didn't like the idea of wasting my days away, starving on a deserted island.

So. The world I was in was now confirmed. One Piece is a go, bucko. Now the only problem happened to be exactly _where_ I was on this zany, cooky, completely insane planet of pirates and marines and lots and lots of water. Judging by the most common tropes of fanfiction… I was probably in one of the Four Blues. Most likely the East Blue, possibly the West Blue, much less likely the North and South Blues. If not one of them, I was probably somewhere in the beginning of the first half of the Grand Line.

My mind screeched to a halt.

Wait.

Those were _joining the Straw Hats_ tropes.

Once more, assuming this life of mine had for some odd reason decided to become a fanfiction, what if… what if this wasn't one of those scenarios? What if this was a _joining the Whitebeard or Shanks Pirates_ scenario?

What if this was _THE NEW WORLD_?

Shit shit shit. I really hoped it wasn't THAT. If it was that, I was a fucking goner. I wasn't ready for this! I wasn't ready for _any_ of this! I especially wasn't ready for the sea that would send the _Grand Line_ home crying to its mommy!

Swallowing dryly, I gulped and glanced back at the Devil Fruit. That annoyingly big and dark blueberry, hanging far too lightly for what its weight should have been on the branch of the tree. Wherever I was here in One Piece, if I wanted to make something of myself… I would need power to do it. Power that I could achieve _quickly_, without years and years of work and practice.

I'd need this Devil Fruit.

Hell, even if I wanted to just survive on this island, I'd probably need this Devil Fruit.

Steeling my nerves, I walked under the branch, reached up… and realized even though it was on the lowest branch, it was still much too high up in the air for me to reach. I jumped as high as I could and swiped at it. Nothing. I pursed my lips and thought.

I sucked at climbing trees, and there wasn't exactly much on this tree for me to work with in that regard, not at this height. Was there any way to get it down other than that? I scanned the area, and saw a cluster of stones in the gravelly sand that had probably rolled down from the mountain. That might work - maybe I could knock it off by throwing those at it! A goal set, I quickly jogged over to them, ignoring the aching protest of my already-abused quads and hamstrings and such. I gathered as many of the rocks as I could in a makeshift pouch created by folding up the bottom of my checkered blue-and-white pajama shirt.

Looking up and judging the distance and power I might need to throw the rocks at, I started chucking them at the Fruit. Most of them missed, because I sucked at aiming. One hit it pretty damn hard, though, and the thing swung rapidly back and forth like a pendulum before tearing off the branch and dropping. I hastily and clumsily caught it before it could splat to the ground.

Yuck. Now that it was up close to me… it _stank_. Words couldn't really describe just how bad it smelled. I felt like throwing up.

If this was what it was going to taste like… my entire body convulsed in a shudder.

No wonder everyone always complained about their taste. The stench alone was enough to give me massive second thoughts. How had I not smelled it before? Maybe as bad as it was, it just wasn't very strong of a smell.

Swallowing, I steeled my nerves and bit into the putrid Fruit.

I froze and swallowed in sheer _horror_, the slimy Fruit slipping down my tongue and through my throat.

After coming back to my senses, I immediately tossed the rest of the Fruit into the sand and spat what was left in my mouth onto it. "EVIL!" I barked, backing as far away from it as I could until I hit the tree trunk. Oh, _God_, that was nasty! That was by far the nastiest thing I had ever eaten. As bad as the smell had been, the _taste_ was a thousand times worse, and I could still taste the disgusting juices on my tongue. It was like I had bit into a rotten corpse covered in cow manure. It tasted like I had swallowed Hell.

Now I perfectly understood the myth about devils living in the Fruit and entering the person who eats them. The taste alone explained that phenomenally well.

I coughed and shuddered, wretching and regretting every life choice that had taken me here.

Why the hell did it taste _so bad?_ And the worst part about it was that I couldn't even see any fresh water around me that I could wash out my mouth with! However, even as I stood there, shivering from the wretched taste of what I'd just subjected my poor taste buds to, my brain couldn't help but wonder…

What power did I just give myself? And how quickly would it appear?

As I thought that, I felt a _tug_, like gravity pulling on my soul, and suddenly I wasn't standing against the tree, but where the Devil Fruit had dropped. Its juices, a vile red almost like blood, still stained the sand, but the Devil Fruit itself wasn't there anymore.

I blinked rapidly.

What the hell?

I turned around, staring at the tree, and saw to my surprise the withering remains of the Fruit where I'd been standing moments ago.

Had I just…

...Switched places with the Devil Fruit?

Um. What?

Teleportation? Or was it something else?

Blinking some more, I frowned and concentrated this time, concentrated on the Devil Fruit sitting there and rotting far quicker than was normal for any other fruit. I imagined that tug again, and suddenly the world _shifted_. I lost my balance and faceplanted into the tree that was suddenly inches from my nose.

Lovely. Thanks, me.

"Ow," I complained, rubbing my sore nose and turning around. The Devil Fruit once more sat where it had been dropped, as though it had never moved places.

Huh. Okay. So. Teleportation, then, via switching places with something. That was at the very least one aspect of whatever powers I had been gifted.

I wondered what the limits to the teleportation were. Could I switch places with any damn thing? I raised my eyebrow and looked around the beach for the seagulls from earlier. They were still there on the beach in the distance, a few miles away. I concentrated and imagined the tug.

Nothing. Interesting… so, then, maybe… a distance limit? Or could I not swap places with living things? I looked down at the scattered rocks that I'd thrown at the Devil Fruit. With a few thoughts, I'd swapped places with three of them. Then I glanced over at the rocks that I hadn't gathered up, which still lay untouched upon the beach.

Nothing.

Beginning to see what the problem was, I walked over and grabbed one of the untouched stones that I'd tried to switch with and threw it out towards the mountain as far as I could. When it landed, I tried switching places with it. Bingo.

So, then… it only worked with things I'd previously touched.

My eyes widened, and I imagined one of the socks that lay in my room at home. Pleading desperately that this would work, I imagined the tug… and nothing.

I still stood there, alone on the beach, in an unfamiliar world that would chew me up and spit me out if I wasn't careful.

For the first time since I'd arrived here, tears of bitter sadness built up in my eyes as the hope that had welled up within me was cruelly dashed against the side of the mountain that pointed up to the sky, uncaring for my troubles, a rather small distance away. Shit. I didn't know of any other powers or things here that could possibly take me home…

I was stuck.

I was stuck here. In _One Piece_, the land where sanity goes to get stabbed thirty-seven times in the chest.

I would probably never go home to my old life and my family and friends ever again.

After a few minutes of tears stinging my eyes, I took several shaky breaths and chewed my lower lip. So. A few issues were still left. Number one, and most importantly, I still didn't see any way to get food or water here. Number two, I still didn't know where I was. Number three, I still had no idea how I could get off this damn island.

What to do, what to do…

I didn't know what to do!

So what _did_ I do? I did what I always did when I was lost on what I should do.

I procrastinated.

"Superpowers," I murmured, staring down at my now almost completely rotted Devil Fruit. "I have superpowers involving switching places with things I touch. But is that the extent to my powers?" My gut feeling told me it wasn't, and I wasn't sure why. Maybe the answer lay in the name to my Devil Fruit, whatever the hell that might be.

I wondered what it would be called. The Teleportation-Teleportation Fruit? Maybe shortened to Tel-Tel? Nah, that was kinda weird and it didn't feel right. Switch-Switch, maybe?

...Yeah, that… felt right. I wasn't sure why. It just felt like when you look down at a multiple choice question on a quiz and see an answer you _know_ is right. Feeling some excitement at the idea of having found the name to my Devil Fruit, despite not knowing exactly why I was so sure I had found its name, I wondered what exactly "Switch-Switch" entailed. Could I switch more than just my location?

I took off my pajama shirt, laid it flat on the sand, and placed a hand on it.

"Switch-Switch… Um…" I faltered, unsure exactly of what to say. "...Opposite!" I settled on, lamely.

_Tug_.

Much to my surprise, suddenly I had another pair of pajama pants right there where my shirt had been. I blinked.

...Huh. Okay then. Frowning at the sensation of the hot Sun beating down on my now bare back, I quickly Switched my new pair of pants back into a shirt and shrugged it on. It felt exactly the same as it had before, except slightly more sandy. Blinking and sure this wouldn't work, I turned and stepped over to kneel down next to the remains of the Devil Fruit.

I touched it and winced at the gooey sensation as my finger squashed the grotesque Fruit. "Switch-Switch Opposite."

Man, I needed to get a better name for that.

_Tug_. Suddenly, the rotting Devil Fruit was a normal blueberry, albeit much too big and still with a bite taken out of it. I picked it up and brought it to my mouth, but hesitated. Even though the stench was gone, my stomach still turned over at the thought of biting into it again.

I bit into it and was pleasantly surprised to taste a normal blueberry, its sweet juices mixing strangely with the ridiculously bad taste of the Devil Fruit. I scarfed the rest of it down.

Huh, I honestly hadn't expected that to work.

Wait a minute, could it work on salt water? I rushed over to the ocean and cupped my hands in the water, gaining a small amount of it. "Switch-Switch Opposite!" I announced with a _tug_, feeling lamer every time I said it, and brought it to my lips.

Cold, lovely fresh water.

Um, guys? I think this power might be a bit broken. I still have to touch things for it to work, sure, but… wow, ship crews would _love _me. With me aboard, they'd hardly ever go thirsty. It's not exactly turning water into wine, but still, _damn_.

Wait a minute.

I blinked. If this is the kind of thing that it can do to Devil Fruits and sea water, what can it do to _people_? Unfortunately, I didn't exactly have other subjects to experiment on, but I did have at least myself…

Feeling slightly concerned that I could be doing something incredibly dangerous, I sighed.

"Fuck it. Let's do this."

I held out my arms, figuring that I wouldn't exactly need to touch myself since… um, wow. That came out wrong. _Phrasing_.

I sighed. "Switch-Switch Opposite."

_Ow ow ow ow ow._ An incredibly intense pins-and-needles feeling swept over all of me, and I quickly found myself blacking out. When I came to, I realized I was lying in the sand, that the Sun was much lower in the sky, and that my body felt… well, not too different, but still. Different.

I stood up and looked down.

Since when did I have two tan melons sticking out of my chest? My eyes widening, I grabbed my crotch. I froze.

...Um.

Oops.

Um… well… at least Ivankov can feel comfortable knowing he's not the only one who can change people's sexes at will?

"Hey there, missy."

_What._ That hadn't been me. I turned around and saw a bunch of evil looking men with really knotty beards and a sweaty stench like they hadn't taken a shower in days standing there, leering at me. Their garb was the usual pirate get up, cutlasses and pistols included.

What the _hell_?

Oh, no. _No, no, no._

"Switch-Switch Oppos-" I started to say, but suddenly one of them lurched forward, and pressed a knife to my throat, grinning wickedly.

"Have a Devil Fruit, d'ya?" the fat man cackled. "Perfect! Today's our lucky day, boys! Them slavers will pay _handsome_ money for this lass!" His wicked eyes turned towards me. "Don't you be trying anything now, missy! Or this dagger will pierce right through your neck!"

_Oh, come on_! I wasn't even a _fucking girl_!

And wait, when did these guys even get here, anyway!? My eyes noticed a pirate ship on the shore behind them, looking like it had seen waaaay better days. Shit, they must've landed while I was conked out. And they planned on kidnapping me, selling me as a slave?

Holy shit, my luck was literally the worst on the planet.

I refused to go through with this. Oh, _hell_ no.

Faking confidence, I smirked and summoned the best laugh I could. "Oh, really? You thought you had captured me, did you? You haven't even found out what my skills are, and you thought it would go that easy for you!? Well, allow me to tell you about the secret technique passed down through my family for generations…"

The pirate blinked, looking slightly paler. "Secret technique?"

"Passed down through generations?" another gulped.

"That's right," I said, nodding sagely despite the fact that I was sweating bullets. "The unbeatable technique…"

"Unbeatable!?"

"Ahahaha… AHAHAHA…! SWITCH-SWITCH TELEPORT!" _Tug_. I switched places with one of the rocks, and turned and hauled ass as fast as I could away. "Run away!"

The pirates stared, dumbfounded.

"...Wait, the bitch is getting away! After her!"

"And I'm not a fucking woman already, I'm a _man!"_ I roared back over my shoulder.

"What!?" the pirates all shouted collectively, looking stupefied. "No way!" They didn't seem like they believed me at all, and instead only got angrier, running towards me even faster.

I cried panicked tears. What the hell had my life come to, that I was now doing my best impression of Jack Sparrow?

I pumped my arms and legs as fast as I could, panting and heaving. Shit. I was still sore from running down the mountain earlier, and these big old jugs on my chest really weren't helping matters. I glanced over my shoulders. Yeah, those bastards were gaining on me quick! Not good! I could feel myself slowing down, too. I poured on the speed as much as I could.

I got maybe about a couple hundred feet further before they caught up to me, panting as hard as I was myself.

The fatso pressed his knife against me again, and about twenty pistols trained on me.

"You're not getting away this time, bitch," he spat, and as I tried to twist away from him, his hand came flying up and clocked me around the face.

I fell unconscious quickly like the squishy, normal human (albeit Devil Fruit user) I was.

~o~

TWO DAYS LATER

"The islands in the north…!"

"Dammit, will you cut out with that song? Your singing voice is really bad when we're not all singing in a party or something and the song itself doesn't even make any sense."

"Your _hair_ doesn't make sense, Marimo."

"Eh!? What did you call me, Swirly Brow?"

"Guys, cut it out! Do you two ever stop fighting!?"

"Yes, sea witch…"

"Yes, Nami-san!"

Sitting on the top of the goat figurehead of the Going Merry, a brown-haired boy wearing a straw hat blinked. "Whoa, guys! Look at that beat-up ship out on the water! It's almost in worse shape than the new ship of that guy who just attacked us the other day!"

"Huh?" a long-nosed man wearing a bandanna tilted his head. "That idiot? I don't think it's possible to have a ship in worse shape than his still be in sailing condition."

The orange-haired young lady of the crew peered out where their captain, Luffy, pointed. "...Wow, that _is_ a badly damaged ship. What the heck happened to them?"

Luffy grinned widely. "Do you think they went to the Grand Line?"

"_Idiot_," Usopp sighed, rolling his eyes. "It's impossible to make it out of that sea once you go in, remember?"

The high-pitched teen captain pouted. "But that… Kree guy and Mihawk made it out!"

Nami facepalmed. "Yeah, and Mihawk's stupidly strong and Don Krieg lost the vast majority of his _massive_ fleet. I've never seen that dumb-looking pirate flag they're flying before. I can't imagine no-names like them made it out of the Grand Line alive."

Luffy hummed. "Maybe they're just idiots?"

"Idiots who don't take care of their ship at all," Sanji muttered, frowning.

Usopp blinked. "Ah. They're headed this way."

"Really?" Zoro asked skeptically. "They _do_ realize Luffy has a thirty-million-beli bounty, right?"

"Ah," Luffy said excitedly. "They're firing their cannons at us."

"Why do you say that like it's a _good_ thing!?" Usopp whimpered, sinking to the deck with tears caking his cheeks.

Zoro and Sanji grinned and cracked their knuckles.

"AND WHY ARE YOU TWO IDIOTS REARING TO GO!?"

"And I thought today was going to just be peaceful sailing," Nami wept mournfully.

The slave-capturing pirates didn't know what they were getting themselves into, nor did they have even the slightest chance against the Straw Hat Pirates.


	2. Saved by the Monkey

Chapter 2 - Saved by the Monkey

Despite the fact that they were, you know, _slave catchers_, the smelly pirate crew that had captured me didn't actually treat me all that bad.

Understandably so, I'd expected a lot worse when I woke up in a rocking, creaking ship's brig that stank of sea salt and rotting wood. It was night time when I awoke, and my stomach was growling and I needed to pee. Luckily, there was food on a plate that sat on the boards of the brig, waiting for me. The prepared meal consisted of hard, tacky bread, an apple, and an orange, as well as a few pieces of beef jerky. I chewed on them, shivering as I thought about how I was now en route to be sold into slavery.

Yeah, no, miss me with that nonsense. I was escaping for sure. The morons hadn't even shackled me with Seastone… or, well, maybe they just didn't have any.

All I needed to do was bide my time and think of a plan.

I checked outside the bars of the brig. I had two guards, but both of them were sound asleep, snoring away. The guard on the left clutched a red bottle of beer tight in his hand even during his slumber. Both guards lay slumped against the floor.

Alright then. That meant I could get to work. I doubted those guys would be waking up anytime soon. First things first, I wanted out of this woman's body. It wasn't like I didn't enjoy the knowledge that I could have a woman's body anytime I wanted, but it simply didn't _feel_ right and besides, I needed to practice changing so that if I ever needed to, I could do so on the fly without worrying about side effects.

I took a deep breath, prepared myself, and _tugged_.

The pins-and-needles feeling nearly overwhelmed me again, but this time, I was ready for it and I managed not to pass out. However, I did find myself completely unable to move for about fifteen minutes. Just when I began to worry that I would be paralyzed for a lot longer, my finger twitched and I sat up straight, panting and wiping a cold sweat away from my forehead. Shit, that had been scary.

I took a deep breath, calmed myself down, and tried again.

Each time I tried, switching sexes hurt less and less and my inability to move decreased more and more. At around the tenth trial, I had finally honed it down to the point where I could switch instantaneously and without any noticeable loss of movement. I supposed my body just needed to get used to the strain of the technique. Content with my mastery of the technique, which I'd taken to calling Switch-Switch Sixty Three, I went over to one of the many holes in the wall, pissed into the ocean (a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do), and then found a… well, semi-comfortable place to lay down and try to sleep at.

Surprisingly, I slept like a log. If I dreamed anything, I sure as hell didn't remember it afterward.

When I woke up, the sun glared in my eyes through holes in the ceiling. I yawned groggily, stretched my limbs, and cracked my back and neck. I'd been somewhat hoping that I'd wake up in my own bed, but of course, this wasn't a dream and so I remained on the slave catchers' pirate ship.

"Breakfast! Oi, ya bitch, we got your… EH!?"

I blinked and looked up to see the pirate who'd slugged me unconscious the other day staring at me in complete shock, eyes bulging out and his jaw touching the floor.

I looked down. I'd went to sleep as a guy.

I looked back up. Oh.

"Well… I _did_ tell you I was a man," I said with a shrug, smirking as his jaw somehow dropped even lower.

"But… but…" he stammered helplessly, struggling to find any words.

I rolled my eyes. "Switch-Switch Sixty Three." With that announcement, I turned into a girl right before his eyes. His jaw dropped even _further_.

"...Damn Devil Fruits," he choked out at last. "I'm… um… going to leave this plate here."

Looking rather like he'd just seen a ghost, he hurriedly opened the door in the brig's gate just enough to slide the plate of food inside, then slammed it shut and shot back down the hall like a bat out of hell. I stared after him for several seconds before bursting out in peals of raucous laughter.

_The look on his fat fucking face! _The Eneru meme lives! Priceless!

Once I'd had my fill of laughing my head off, I got up, went over to my plate of food (which was pretty much the same as last night's meal except with bacon), and while I ate, I wondered how I should occupy my time.

Might as well test out my powers more, right? Maybe mess with the pirates in the process?

After I'd finished eating, my guards, who up until that point had still been sleeping off their alcohol, woke up. This was mostly due to me tossing kernels of rock-hard bread at them. They blearily took my finished plate back up to, presumably, the kitchen. Waiting a few minutes, I paced around the room in boredom. When I at last felt like enough time had passed, I stood up and intoned, "Switch-Switch Teleport!"

_Tug._

I suddenly found myself in the ship's rather run-down kitchen, having swapped places with my dirty plate. A ratty chef looked up at me in shock and nearly dropped a meat-cutting knife on his foot, freaking him out even more.

"Switch-Switch Teleport!"

_Tug. _I was back in my cell. I hummed. So, then, I didn't need to see objects I wanted to teleport to and it didn't matter whether walls stood in the way. Good information to know.

Footsteps echoed down the hall as, presumably, someone ran down a flight of stars and the hall. What looked to be the captain of the ship appeared on the other side of the gate, steaming mad.

"Hey, bitch, or bastard, or whichever you are!" he growled furiously, pointing at me sternly. "Stay in your damn cell or next time, we'll gut you like a fish!"

I used Sixty Three to turn back into a man. "That'd be bastard, thanks," I said helpfully.

The captain stared at me in shock. "I heard about it from Bob, but… that's weird to see," he muttered. "In any case! Remember! Stay in the cell, or get gutted!"

"Yes, yes," I said with mock conviction.

The pirates kind of left me alone after that, perhaps out of fear that I'd teleport out of my cell and… I dunno. Do _something_ to them. Bored again, I spent the rest of the day thinking up ways to use my Fruit in combat. Hmm… I'd be great for team attacks… and I should probably carry around a sling of many small, light objects to use to teleport with…

I also thought about home a lot. I missed it severely. This world was way too crazy, and I _really_ didn't want to die some crazy-ass death even though I knew that I'd end up trying to join the Straw Hat crew at some point (they're the fucking _Straw Hats_; you think I'd _not_ join them after getting dropped in One Piece?). My heart ached to return home, to see my mom and dad again, to go back to my normal, boring life working and going to college and playing video games.

Part of me wondered what was going on back home. Did time pass the same in this world as it did on Earth? While I'd been here for a full day and counting already, had several months passed, or not even a few seconds? Had anybody even noticed I was gone, or had all memory of me vanished alongside my existence on the planet?

And speaking of… how exactly had I ended up here in the first place? I didn't remember dying, or meeting some sort of omnipotent being or something.

The rest of the day passed without much incident. The pirates gave me a wide berth but still provided me with enough food and water. Lacking much of anything else to do, I settled on working out; doing some sit ups and push ups and stuff. I'd need to build up as much strength as I could if I wanted to survive here in this universe. I was occasionally let out to go to the bathroom, although a knife was pressed against my neck, but other than that, I had all the time in the world to myself.

Day one on the ratty pirate ship came and went, and day two passed similarly until sometime just after the crew delivered me my lunch.

While I munched on the tacky bread (God, I couldn't wait to get off this ship so I could get some better food), my ears suddenly rang with cannon fire. I blinked and looked up, wondering why they had shot off a cannon. Wondering if there was a crew nearby, I went over to one of the many holes in the walls and stared outside.

My eyes widened.

Was that… yeah! It was the Going Merry coming towards us at a somewhat perpendicular angle. The ship I remained prisoner on turned towards the iconic caravel while I looked in awe at the Straw Hats' ship. If I squinted, I could see Luffy standing with a wide, battle-ready grin on his face the figurehead. He pointed at us and his lips moved as he presumably shouted something. My capturers' cannon fired at them, but missed. Classic One Piece inability to aim cannons.

Our ships grew closer and closer, and when we were close enough, Luffy ran back off the goat figurehead, and before I knew it, had suddenly shot himself clear over to us with a Gum-Gum Rocket. He flew through the air with a hand holding his precious straw hat tight to his head and a moment later, I heard the _thump_ of him landing on the ship deck.

Panicked shouting and the sounds of fighting echoed down to me. I sat in my cell, blinking, as the two crew members who'd been assigned to guard me raced up the hall outside of the brig to join the battle.

Several loud _cracks_ of pistols rang out, followed by a cackle of "THAT WON'T WORK!" as the bullets from said pistols were probably flung back at their owners due to Devil Fruit Bullshit™. Barely even a few minutes later, the sounds of the battle died out completely.

I stretched my limbs and stood up. Well, I hadn't exactly been expecting this, but now as good a chance to meet the purest boy on the Blue Seas as any. "Switch-Switch Teleport," I said, and promptly switched with one of my plates to get back into the kitchen. I walked past a counter of sinks and cutting boards and abandoned tools, and pushed through a door to emerge out on the deck of the ship. Luffy sat there in the center, grinning and laughing among the entire decimated crew of slave-catchers.

"Shishishi… eh?" He blinked and looked over at me. "There's still another of these guys left?"

"Nope," I said, shaking my head. "I'm not a member of this crew. I was captured by them and was planning on escaping before you showed up and took them all out for me. Thanks, by the way."

Luffy smiled a smile that shone so brightly I swore it could blind me. "Oh. No problem!"

I looked over at the Going Merry, which only had a short way to go until it had pulled up beside me. "So then, you're a pirate too?" I asked as though I didn't already know.

"Yep!" His grin widened. "And I'm going to be the King of the Pirates!" He paused. "Do you need a way to get back to, uh… wherever it is these guys captured you from?"

The thought of returning to that dumbass, lifeless mountain island made me shudder. "God, no. I'd actually gotten marooned on a deserted island when these guys picked me up. Hell, in a weird way, they might have saved my life by capturing me. I don't really have a home to return to, either, so…" I winced.

Luffy hummed and leaned forward, tapping his sandaled feet together with interest. "Why'd they capture you?"

"They're slave catchers," I explained. "And well, I suppose that I'd fetch a high price on the market since… well, I'll just show you. Switch-Switch Sixty Three!" My hair lengthened, my chest ballooned out, and my hips gained an hourglass figure as I changed instantaneously into a girl. Luffy's mouth made an o.

"Whoa! Cool!" he cheered as I reversed the switch and became a guy again. The black-haired boy's eyes had sparkles in them. "Did you eat a Devil Fruit!?"

"Yep," I confirmed, smiling and rubbing the back of my head. "The Switch-Switch Fruit. I can switch objects into their opposites, as well as switch locations with things I've touched. There might be other things I can do with it, too; I haven't had it very long so I haven't exactly been able to test out everything."

By this point, the Going Merry had finally drawn up in line with the slave catcher's ship, and Nami, Zoro, Usopp, and Sanji - so then, the timeline was after Arlong Park - were there waiting and calling for Luffy to get back on board.

"Neat! Join my crew!"

It happened so suddenly it barely registered what exactly he was saying, and without quite thinking, I answered, "Sure."

The other Straw Hats except Luffy fell silent instantly as they all stared in shock.

"What!?" Sanji demanded at last while his captain simply grinned and laughed like all of this was perfectly normal. "How did we get a new crew member this fast and this randomly? And why so easily!? He practically forced me to join!"

Zoro sighed and facepalmed. "Luffy, do you even know this guy's name?"

Luffy nodded, pouting. "Yeah, it's…" He turned to me, blinking.

I opened my mouth to reply with my name, then paused. Wait a minute, I was in another world. I didn't necessarily have to retain my name if I didn't want to. I could get a much cooler one! I mean, there was nothing _wrong_ with my name, exactly, but… still.

"Colt," I decided. "Read Colt." Or Colt Read, going by Western naming conventions.

Zoro sighed. "Who even is Colt? You didn't know his name at all, did you, Luffy?"

Luffy laughed. "He's a cool guy! He's got Devil Fruit powers!"

"Can he actually do anything on a ship?" Nami objected. I opened my mouth in protest, then closed it as I reconsidered. Wait, there wasn't exactly much I _could_ do.

"I, um… can write and sing?" I offered weakly.

"Great!" my sudden new captain cheered. "You can be Lead Singer, then!"

"That's a position in a _choir_, not a _pirate crew_," Usopp pointed out, facepalming. "He said he can write, yeah? Then make him the guy in charge of the ship's log."

Luffy blinked. "I have no idea what that is, but you're in charge of that!" he announced. "And you're our Lead Singer too!" The Straw Hats all groaned, resigned to the fact that their captain was an idiot.

Sanji rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Just get on board, you two."

"Right!" Luffy chirped, and promptly grabbed me by the shoulder and dragged me on board before I could object to him doing so.

And that's the story of how I joined the second most influential pirate crew on the Blue Seas.

~o~

After my sudden rescue and Straw Hat membership gain, the caravel that had just become my new home somehow set sail once more en route of its next location, which I learned from Nami to be Loguetown even though I already knew that. I just wanted confirmation that things in the timeline matched the story I knew. Apparently, they'd already found out about Luffy's thirty million beli bounty, which helped me narrow down the timeline even further.

"Wow," I said once Usopp humble-bragged to me about that particular piece of information (despite not having the bounty himself). I whistled. "I got on the ship of a really famous guy, huh?"

Usopp blinked. "Uh… you haven't heard of Pirate Hunter Zoro?"

"_Two_ famous guys," I hastily amended.

"And of course, I happen to be the great _Captain Usopp_, with over eight thousand men following my command!" The long-nosed liar posed dramatically as if to emphasize this point. Whether he meant to or not, he looked so much like a JoJo's character that I snorted and descended into snickers. He stared. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing," I chortled, gasping for breath. "Just… good pose, man!"

Usopp tilted his head with uncertainty. "Um, thanks?"

"Don't mention it," I snickered. While I amused myself with picturing Usopp as a JoJo character, Sanji came out of the kitchen with a plate of delicious-smelling fried rice and chicken. My stomach growled hungrily.

"Here, have some food," Sanji said with a small smile. "You said that you were captured by those guys to be sold into slavery, right? I bet they didn't have very good food for you, so eat up."

I snatched the plate and the fork that he offered me away from him instantly. "Don't have to tell me twice," I said happily. A chance to try Sanji's cooking? Hell yes! I sat down on the railing of the Going Merry, balanced the plate of food in my lap, and started shoveling down my first meal that didn't have tacky bread in it since I arrived in this world.

Shit! It was so good! The seasoning was phenomenal, the rice was buttery and wonderful, and the chicken was sweet and tender and _mmph!_

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

"You have one hell of an appetite," Usopp observed dryly after I finished my plate within the span of about three or four minutes. "There's nothing left there."

On the other side of the ship, Luffy turned around from where he stood, fishing off the side of the Merry. "Shishishi! Sanji's food is delicious! Who wouldn't eat everything?"

"Says the man with a bottomless pit for a stomach," Zoro, who had seemed to have fallen asleep a while ago, snarked.

"So, what's your Devil Fruit power?" Sanji asked interestedly. "Luffy said you had one but you never told us what it was."

I blinked in realization. "Oh, that's right. I showed Luffy but didn't show you guys." I thought a moment, then got up and set my plate down in the center of the deck. I walked a few feet away, then concentrated on the plate. "Switch-Switch Teleport!"

Sanji and Usopp _oo'_d with interest while Zoro cracked one eyebrow open and grunted. Nami sighed like she was done with this superpower bullshit.

"My Fruit is called the Switch-Switch Fruit," I said, grinning, and promptly launched into an explanation of my Fruit. When I had finished, Sanji rose his hand.

"What happens if it's used on humans, Colt?"

I paused, then grinned evilly. "Heheheh… ahahaha…! Switch-Switch Sixty Three!"

Sanji's jaw dropped at my new body.

Usopp stared, then groaned. "Oh, no."

"Oh, _yes_," I cackled gleefully.

Zoro gawked at me for a moment, then looked over at Sanji and burst into laughter at the blond's expression. "Colt, you have my whole-hearted approval," he laughed with a glint in his eye. Then he grimaced and flinched. "Er, watch out-!"

"IDIOT!" Nami roared, and before I could quite dodge, I felt her fist rocket across my face. I hit the deck hard, groaning and seeing spots.

"_Ow…_ Did you have to hit so hard?"

She glared at me piercingly, her fist steaming a little. She crossed her arms and harrumphed. "No, but I'm a pirate, so screw the rules."

Meanwhile, Sanji was finally finding the ability to speak again. "H-how… whuh… why… _so confused_… Your hair… so beautiful and brown… your skin, so creamy… your eyes, so full and deep… BUT YOU'RE A MAN! BUT YOU'RE ALSO A WOMAN! _I DON'T UNDERSTAND!_"

Nami groaned. "Dammit, Colt, I think you broke our chef. Not even a full day..."

"Shishishi!" Luffy giggled happily. "You guys are hilarious!"

"DON'T PATRONIZE ME!" Sanji barked, irate, while Zoro guffawed. "And Colt, you basta… Um…" He paused, opening his mouth and closing it, obviously extremely confused. "You bas… er, um, just change back already!"

"_Please_ do," the orangette of the crew begged. "I don't want our chef to be broken for the rest of the day."

"Fine, fine," I sighed, standing up and rubbing the back of my head. Shit, I hope I didn't have a concussion, because that hurt like a bitch. I rolled my eyes, then smirked and winked at Sanji. "Sorry, _Sanji-kuuun_~!"

"AAAAARGH, DAMMIT, STOP! STOP!"

"Switch-Switch Sixty Three." My hair shortened, I grew taller, my chest shrank back into my body, and my sides filled out as I transformed back into a man.

Sanji let out a deep breath, sucked in another gulp of air, and let it out with a huff. He repeated this a few times, then glared at me. "Colt," he said seriously, "don't do that to me again, please. Now, I have to go stare at a wall and rethink everything for a while."

We watched him retreat into the kitchen, staring as a few moments passed, then a very, very loud, "_WHY HIM AND NOT ME!?" _roared through the air.

Usopp shook his head amusedly while Nami facepalmed.

"Well, I think he'll be at that for a while," I said cheerfully, while the navigator side-eyed me.

"No thanks to you."

Zoro yawned and stretched. "Well, that was interesting," he said, sounding pretty pleased with the way things were. He stood up and smirked at me. "So, how's your fighting ability, Colt?"

I froze. "Um. I… uh… Can I get back to you on that?"

Zoro cracked his knuckles, his smirk getting eviler by the minute. "Nope."

"Uhhhhh," I squeaked, shaking on my feet from the _look_ that moss-haired man was giving me, "not… very… _gooood?_"

The three-swords-style pirate hunter chuckled menacingly.

I exchanged glances with Usopp. "I'm dead, aren't I?"

The bandanna-wearing sniper laid an apologetic hand on my shoulder, nodding sincerely. "It wasn't long knowing you, but I wish you luck in the next life, friend."

"Fuuuuuck." This was going to be _painful_. I wasn't looking forward to our first training session, that was for sure.

"So, let's get right to it," Zoro said, grinning. "It's best to get you training as early as possible."

...Oh. Shit.

I now regretted several recent life choices.

Life aboard the Going Merry quickly fell into a pattern after that. At seven thirty in the morning, we all had breakfast. Shower time lasted until eight thirty, with one person having to ride the bike-like mechanism that pumped the water to the showers. Having found out how physically weak I was the first day I was aboard the ship, Zoro appointed me via his unspoken authority as (a) unofficial vice-captain, and (b) my training master, to be the "biker" for everyone else. After that, we'd take turns at the helm throughout the day. Sometimes we'd play cards with Usopp, or other times Zoro and I would get some extra morning training (usually leg or upper body workouts) in. We'd also do whatever else we pleased; I often spent time practicing with my Devil Fruit and seeing exactly what I could do with it.

Lunch came at around two, and was often the biggest meal of the day. After lunch, we would take turns washing the dishes, although Zoro once again often delegated me to the task to train up my arm muscles and movement. After that, Zoro and I trained our body strength and then the swordsman taught me how to fight.

Apparently, the Going Merry had had a few wooden practice swords on it when the crew had gotten it. Zoro hadn't had any use for them, despite the fact that two of his previous swords had been broken by Mihawk in their duel. Therefore, he lent two of them to me so that I could learn swordsmanship. Despite the fact that I knew nothing about swordfighting (outside of what I vaguely remembered from having dabbled with it for a little bit back when I'd practiced karate in sixth grade), I found myself learning… relatively quickly, all things considered. Even Zoro seemed pleased at the rate I picked things up at.

"You're a fast learner," he grunted on the third day. I was getting a hang of quickly switching between the various stances that he'd been teaching me.

I'll admit, I blushed a little. Can you blame me? I was a bisexual kid staring at Zoro's extremely well-developed (and bare) chest. The man was _strong_, and he had the muscles to back it up. It didn't help that his face was attractive, too.

"Thanks," I said, shaking myself out of my man crush.

Zoro nodded. "Now switch to your female form."

One thing we'd found out upon experimentation was that although I carried all my increasing muscle mass over to my girl body, my physical exhaustion didn't carry over as much. Some of it did, but not all of it; and vice-versa for transforming from female-to-male. However, the physical exhaustion in each form was still there when I returned to it. Basically what this meant was that I had more stamina due to Devil Fruit Bullshit™.

"Alright, now let's do a couple hundred repetitions of the Dual Quick-Draw."

"A couple hundred!?" I moaned, groaning at the thought of how sore my muscles would be from that.

"Keep complaining and it'll be three hundred."

"Yes, Zoro-sama," I groaned, falling into a horse stance.

For some reason, Zoro tended to get even tougher on me than usual in our training bouts when I was in my female body. I guessed that this was because of his whole past with Kuina and her father's whole "girls can't be as strong as guys" complete bullshit.

I was both extremely grateful and extremely hating Zoro for his training. On one hand, in just a few days, he'd brought me to the best physical condition I'd ever been in my life. I was actually beginning to learn how to fight, at least a little, and was confident that after some more practice, I could actually hold my own in a battle against some mooks. On the other hand, _God_ my muscles hurt. My arms and legs and abs and everything just ached like crazy.

Anyway, training with Zoro usually lasted until about dinnertime, or a bit earlier depending on how content the Pirate Hunter was with my workout. We all ate dinner at about sundown, and after dinner Luffy would usually rope me into sharing some songs with the crew.

I sang several sea shanties that I knew for them, including _Blow the Man Down_ and _What Do You Do with the Drunken Sailor?_ The latter quickly changed into _What Do You Do with the Drunken Zoro?_ courtesy of Nami and Sanji, much to my "master's" chagrin.

Then, at long last, it would be light's out at 11 in the night. We did, however, have to keep watch; we had it set up so that two people would keep watch per night, switching out at 3 a.m.

That was my life aboard the Going Merry. It was enough hard work that I thankfully didn't have much time to consider what might be happening at home or to miss my family. Quickly, I found myself attaining growing bonds with the various Straw Hats, most notably Zoro, Luffy, and Usopp. Nami didn't seem to quite trust me yet, and Sanji was still apparently pissed about my luck in Devil Fruits. Plus his face usually turned red whenever he saw me and he'd make a huge point out of looking away.

Well, it probably didn't help that I liked to tease him about my female form, though.

Oh, another point of interest was that I'd borrowed clothes from the guys so that I didn't have to wear my pajamas constantly, and I discovered that I could transform a guy's outfit into a girl's with my powers. Lucky me; that meant that at the very least I wouldn't have to go shopping for two sets of clothes and be constantly switching out whenever I wanted to use my female form. My most common outfit tended to be one of Sanji's older dress shirts. It was light green and went well with the dark jeans Usopp had lent me. Neither fit me terribly well, however, and I made the unfortunate realization that I'd have to borrow money from Nami for clothes shopping whenever we arrived at Loguetown.

Speaking of which…

On the eighth day of my time spent on the Going Merry, fairly early in the morning while I played _Go Fish_ with Usopp, Luffy let out an excited whoop from the goat figurehead.

"Guys! I can finally see it!" he exclaimed, turning towards with his trademark, impossibly wide grin. "Loguetown!"

Zoro blinked and looked up from where he lay sleeping on the deck. "Eh? We're finally almost there?"

Sanji, Usopp, Nami, and I all gathered at the front of the ship where Luffy and Zoro already were. We looked out over the sea and sure enough, coming up in front of us was none other than Loguetown. A pack of seagulls flew overhead of us, too, headed straight for the island.

Usopp grinned and folded his hands behind his head. "So that's the island Loguetown's on."

"It's a pretty big town, right?" Sanji said thoughtfully.

"I bet it's huge," I agreed, humming. "I've never been there myself, but I've heard stories about it. There's all sorts of interesting people there, apparently."

"I wonder if they have good cooking supplies," the blond hummed. He frowned pointedly at Luffy and I. "You two big eaters have almost made us run out of food."

I sheepishly rubbed my head. "Sorry, sorry. I don't know what's gotten into me. I usually don't eat anywhere near as much as I have been. In fact, back home, people used to say I ate like a bird."

Usopp stared at me. "Eh? You? Eat like a bird? I don't see it."

"Well, it's true."

"I'm hitting up the weapon stores," Zoro announced. "Having just one sword doesn't fit a Three-Sword Style user. And I'll get a couple for you, too, Colt."

I blushed. "You don't have too, really. I'm still not good enough to hold a real sword anyway…"

"Nonsense. A swordsman needs a proper sword. Besides, you need to know what it feels like to hold a _real_ weapon, not one of those cheap wooden swords you've been using."

Nami grinned cheekily at him. "Really? And where will you be getting all this money from, hmmmm? I know for a _fact_ you don't have any money of your own…"

Zoro flinched and gulped. "Ah… Shit…"

"Well, I'll let you borrow some of my money," Nami informed him with a wink, "with interest, of course."

He narrowed his eyes. "How much interest?"

She snickered. "Three hundred percent."

"You're a sea witch," both the mosshead and I deadpanned.

"Yes, yes, I'll burn in hell," Nami agreed cheekily. "I'll see you two down there, too!"

Usopp chuckled. "Well, fortunately for me, I do have money of my own, so I'm going to hit up some equipment shops."

"And as for me, I'll get myself some clothes," I said. I winced. "Nami, could you…?"

"Come with me, then," Nami suggested, shrugging. "I need some new clothes, too. And in return for being my bag carrier, I'll pay for your clothes for you."

I stared at that. Maybe Nami had warmed up to me more than I'd thought. "Uh, sure." It wasn't like I hadn't helped out carrying bags for my mom and my sister during shopping excursions in the past, after all.

"And I'm going to go see where the Pirate King died!" Luffy announced.

"The town of the beginning and of the end, huh," I said, smiling. Well, while it wasn't much of an end for me as it may have been for the other Straw Hats, it would still be a beginning for me - the beginning of my journey through the Grand Line aboard the greatest ship on the seas.

And really, what more could I possibly have wanted? I folded my arms happily… and winced as my muscles ached.

Well, I could have wanted a less tough "master" to train with, maybe…


	3. Shenanigans at Loguetown

Chapter 3 - Shenanigans at Loguetown

"WE'RE HERE!" Luffy was agog at the fact that we had finally made landfall at Loguetown, and he hopped up and down like a little kid at the ice cream parlor. "This town is _so huge_! You guys weren't kidding!"

I shook my head and grinned at his childish behavior. "You act like you've never been to a city before."

"Not one this big!" Luffy said, giddy with the desire to explore. I could see how much he wanted to do so in his eyes. They literally sparkled with adventure. He looked around at the street in front of us, beyond the triangular archway boasting the city's name that stretched from the roof of the buildings on one side of the street to the other. "Whoa, there's all sorts of shops and things!"

"This place used to be a pirate haven until the Marines showed up," Nami said. "It still has everything you'd need for a trip to the Grand Line."

"Seems like they'll have good supplies for all of what we want, then," Sanji whistled appreciatively. "Do you think they give discounts for pirates?"

"Probably not with the Marines around, perv cook," Zoro said with a roll of his eyes.

Sanji's eye twitched, but he sighed and ignored the jab this time. "Well, at any rate, let's not waste any time, guys. Luffy does have a bounty, after all, and this is a Marine base. The more time we spend here, the more likely it is someone will recognize Luffy and call the Marines down on us."

"About that!" I said, raising my hand. "I have a solution!"

All eyes turned to me.

After a few skipped beats, Usopp realized what I meant; the first of the Straw Hats to do so. "Huh-? Wait. _No_."

Nami's eyes widened in horror after that, and her face darkened with a blush. "You mean you want to-? _No way!_"

"What?" I asked innocently, an evil smirk crossing my lips as I imagined what I might produce. "It's just a disguise!"

"_The world isn't ready for this, Colt!_"

Sanji looked frozen. His eyes darted from me to Luffy, then back to me and repeated the cycle. He opened his mouth, closed it, then shuddered and looked away. "...I understand why you want to do this, and it would definitely work, but I _really _don't want to consider the effects it would have so I'm just going to run away and retain my sanity."

"OI! SANJI!" barked a horrified Nami and Usopp, trying to stop him as he dashed away into the crowd in abject terror.

Luffy blinked and tilted his head in innocent confusion. "I don't know what you guys are talking about, but it sounds fun! Let's do it!"

"That's two yays, two nays," I said, my voice laced with evil laughter. I turned to grin at Zoro disarmingly. "What says you, my dear Sensei?"

Zoro stared at me, then sighed. "Do whatever you want."

Terror washed over Nami and Usopp. "Zoro, you traitor! Do you want to watch the world burn that badly!?" they cried in tandem.

"_Muahahaha… MUAHAHAHA…" _I bellowed, throwing my head back and my arms up in the air. "Luffy, come with me, we don't want you out where prying eyes can see for this." Luffy blinking cluelessly in response, I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him over to a nearby wall, where a pile of crates and barrels blocked our view from the general populous swarming the streets of Loguetown. Then I placed a hand on Luffy's head.

"Ready?" I said. Then I winced as a sudden realization crossed my mind. "Um. Actually, just remembered - this may hurt a bit, and, uh, maybe leave you unable to move. It did for me the first time, anyway. Try to ignore the pain so you don't fall unconscious."

A carefree, pure smile stretched up Luffy's rubbery cheeks. "That's okay! Just do whatever it is! I want to see this cool disguise!"

"Alright. Switch-Switch Sixty Three."

I blinked. One second, Luffy remained normal - a rather short guy with short, unkempt black hair and a round face with a fairly small nose. Well, I say he was rather short, but he wasn't much shorter than me in all fairness; whereas (if my memory held firm) he was 5 foot 6, I stood at 5 foot 11. In any case, with a burst of smoke that expelled from him, he suddenly several inches over me in height, and his hair lengthened out down his back. His chest expanded out as though he'd used a miniature Gum-Gum Balloon only there, becoming two decent-sized breasts; if I had to wager a guess, I'd say around a mid or higher tier C cup? His eyes softened even more than they already were, becoming a beautiful light hazel, and his head became more heart-shaped.

Luffy's clothes changed, too, to accommodate his new form. His vest simply changed shape to a more feminine version, one that showed off a bit of his cleavage while hugging his newly hourglass shaped hips more. His jean shorts also changed, getting shorter and gaining fluffy frills on the bottoms.

All of this happened in the space of a second or two.

Luffy blinked and tilted his head. "That didn't really hurt at all."

I stared. "...Eh? It hurt me like crazy the first time. Can you still move? Wait, you tilted your head, yes you can. ...What the hell!? That's so unfair!"

"Shishishi!" He looked down in awe. "This is awesome, Colt! I'm a girl now?"

"Yep," I confirmed, giving him a thumbs up. "What do you want to be called while you're like this, 'he or she?"

Luffy shrugged. "I don't really care," he said, his voice higher and softer now. "She's fine, I guess?"

"'She' it is, then." I nodded and started heading back to the others. I gave her another once-over. Damn, she looked incredibly cute! I would _totally_ tap that. As soon as that thought crossed my mind, I blushed and immediately shoved it into the darkest recesses of my thoughts. "Well, come on Luffy, now that that's settled…"

"Right!"

Nami and Usopp stared on while we returned, me grinning like the Cheshire Cat as I looked forward to the sheer glory of their expressions. Luffy didn't have a care in the entire world, despite the fact that each step caused her new breasts to jiggle, which in turn drew some seedy looks from some of the other men on the street near us. The orangette and long nose shook themselves out of their stupor and exchanged horrified looks.

"She's _ridiculously cute_," Usopp whimpered at last. "_Why? _Remember Kaya… Remember Kaya..."

"It's so unfair," Nami cried. "_Why does Luffy of all people make such a beautiful girl!?_"

"We can't let Sanji see this."

"Never," Nami agreed, tired pain weaving through her voice like the mere thought of such an event sounded worse than entering Hell itself to her. "Never in a million years."

Zoro, watching the whole thing with a raised eyebrow, just shook his head. I couldn't read his thoughts very well, although he did seem resigned to all of the bullshit going on around him. "Colt, you're something else, I'll give you that much."

"I'll take that as a compliment!"

Luffy looked down at her breasts. "Man, these things are heavy," she complained suddenly. "And this shirt is making my chest hurt!" As I gazed on, not quite understanding what she was about to do, she reached up to… grab at her…

I almost choked in flustered panic as realization struck me.

Oh, shit.

Usopp and Nami squealed in horror, their faces going pure white as Usopp murmured weakly, "It's just as we feared…"

"LUFFY, NO!" I yelped, face flushed like a tomato. "You're in public!"

The sex-swapped pirate captain paused and looked at me, clearly not understanding the problem. Her head tilted almost 45 degrees to the right. "Eh? But I've done this before."

"But… but…" I stammered, nearly choking in my own embarrassment. "You're a girl now!" I hissed quietly so that no bystanders would hear. "It's different!"

She pouted. "How?"

"It just is!" Nami and I groaned together. Luffy picked her nose shamelessly, humming noncommittally.

"I have several regrets," I added, facepalming.

Nami glared at me. "Now you know why we didn't want you to do this! Do you want to send her out on her own like _that_? She'll flash the entire street!"

"Well, what do you suggest, huh!?" I pointed out, my face hot with the embarrassment of almost seeing Luffy's… ah, large tracts of land. "We needed a way to disguise her and this was the best option!"

"Yeah, but you could have put a little more forethought into this!" Usopp moaned.

"Guys?" Zoro said flatly.

"Well, excuse me for not realizing Luffy would be _this_ socially inept!" I huffed, even though I really should have seen this coming. I mean, fuck, I'd seen Amazon Lily. Luffy had absolutely no problem showing off his "family jewels" to an island full of women. Why would he have had any problem with this whatsoever?

Zoro sighed. "Guys?"

"We'll have to have one of us go with her to make sure she doesn't show herself to the rest of the world," Usopp decided at last. "Draw straws, maybe?"

"We don't have straws on us," Nami retorted.

"Well, I'll teleport to the ship and get some then," I concluded.

"Guys… Luffy's already left."

We froze.

The wind blowing gently across the street and the chit-chatting of the pedestrians reigned as the only sounds around us for several moments

"...Fuck," I said solemnly.

"This is a problem," Usopp decided flatly.

Nami nodded, side-eyeing me and obviously judging me. "A very big problem."

"In my defense…" I started to say, then trailed off. "Actually, yeah, I've got nothing. This is completely my fault. I take full blame for this."

Zoro shook his head in bemusement. "Well, I'm going to go get our swords, Colt. Let's all meet up back here in a few hours." And with that, the tall green-haired swordsman walked off into the crowd, headed for whatever weapon shops he could find.

We watched him go silently, still trying to process what exactly had just happened.

"Um… I guess we better follow suit?" Usopp relented, and Nami and I sighed.

"Alright, then. See ya in a few hours, buddy." I clapped Usopp on the shoulder and nodded at Nami. "Come on, let's go shopping."

Nami groaned. "Sure… And if thousands of people get flashed, it's entirely your fault."

~o~

Smoker stared at the straw-hatted girl he'd bumped into in the narrow alley as she ran happily down it, shouting about some platform or something. She looked kind of familiar, but also unfamiliar at the same time. He squinted his eyes, trying to figure out why he felt like he knew her.

And also why, exactly, her strikingly red vest hung completely open and unbuttoned, without even a bra underneath it.

Straw Hat Girl picked herself up off the ground from where she'd fallen and looked up at him. "Whoa! You look cool!"

"...Thanks?" he said, uncertainly.

"Who are you? Do you know where the place where they execute people is at?"

"I'm Smoker," he said, rolling his cigars around between his lips. "And it's that way." He pointed in the direction of the execution platform, caught off-guard by this strange girl who apparently had never heard of him before. She must be a visitor from offshore. But still, even then, most visitors had heard about him, especially people from nearby islands. And she didn't even seem to recognize his status as a Marine, either; he knew well the look people gave him when they realized his status.

"Thanks, Smokey!" she exclaimed, and ran off in the direction he'd pointed her to. "You're a nice guy!"

"It's Smoker," he replied automatically, as for some reason, he felt like he was talking to that idiot Garp. Then he blinked, and the feeling passed. "...And buckle up your vest." He started to walk back down the alley, in route to take out most recent pirate crew causing trouble on the island, when she said…

"Geez, you're acting just like my crew now. Hmmph." And the sound of a rubber band snapping cracked through the air.

Smoker whirled around, surprised at what he'd just heard, but only an empty alley met his eyes. He blinked. Where had she gone? Had she hidden behind one of the many clusters of dusty barrels and crates shoved against the walls? He frowned and shrugged it off, turning around and continuing back down on his path.

While he went on his way, the mint-haired Marine mused over her last sentence. She'd said crew, right? But she didn't look like a Marine nor did she carry herself like one. He simply couldn't rationally see any pirate crew letting a cute, innocent girl such as her be their captain, either. Maybe she meant something like a traveling theater production crew? He'd met one of those once.

~o~

"Honestly, that rubber-brained idiot is gonna be the death of me one of these days," Nami sighed with annoyance mixed with a small amount of fondness. Walking up and down the streets, we searched for the stores with the cheapest, but greatest quality, clothes. We weren't finding much luck, however, or at least, Nami wasn't finding anything that caught her eye.

I strode over the cobblestone streets of Loguetown alongside the resident navigator, listening to her complain about her captain tiredly. She'd been moaning about this since we all split up to do our own thing.

"Yeah, well, what's done is done," I said at last, shrugging. "All we can hope for now is that he… er, she doesn't cause too much chaos."

Nami sighed. "You're right and I hate you for that."

We walked in silence for a moment, mulling over recent events.

"Sorry for hitting you," she said suddenly.

I furrowed my brow in confusion and looked over at her as my ADD momentarily made me forget the event in question. "What?" Then I blinked in realization. "Oh, you mean when I teased Sanji with my female form that first time?"

"Yeah. Sorry about that. I thought you were going to try something else with it, and it felt like you were misusing your female form or something."

I rubbed my head sheepishly, blushing. "Oh. That's understandable." I tried to ignore the fact that I'd spent the last several days considering some, ah, naughty time with said form. Wincing, I said, "It still hurt, though."

Nami chuckled apologetically. "I hit harder than I used to… Luffy makes a good punching bag, especially with all of the dumbass things he… er, she gets up to sometimes."

"I can definitely understand that," I said dryly, smirking a little. "I bet hitting him's therapeutic."

A cutesy, faux-innocent grin swept up her face. "Yep! And it doesn't hurt him one bit!"

We laughed at that for a good bit, then I spotted a store sign with a shirt on it. I looked at the door of the shop, which sported lettering that read 'Cranky's Clothes.'

"Cranky's Clothes?" I repeated, raising an eyebrow skeptically. "Who names their shop like that? I'd be worried people would stay away because they don't want to get yelled at by the owner."

Nami shrugged. "Who knows? We might as well check it out."

We entered the shop, a doorbell attached to the inward door handle jingling as we did so. Contrary to its name, the clothes store was warm and welcoming. A pleasant aroma like ginger tea wafted against my nose. A hanging ceiling fan turned rapidly, creating a pleasant, cool breeze that felt nice after the heat from outside. Circular racks of shirts and pants stood evenly spaced on the wooden floor, while well-made shoes sat in lines on shelves that stuck out from the side walls. At the far end of the shop sat the counter. Behind it stood an old man with a strangely elongated, ovular head and pink hair almost resembling carrot greens.

"Hey, damn whippersnappers!" the old guy greeted us in a voice whose cheerfulness contrasted the language he used. "Glad to see damn youngsters like you in this fucking place!"

I blinked. "You're Cranky, I assume?"

The old guy grinned. "Cranky's my name, mate. Don't fuckin' overuse it, hear me? Watcha looking for?"

"Clothes, to start off with," Nami snarked flatly.

Cranky guffawed. "Nice! I like a youngster with a sense of humor! Well, you barged into the right goddamn place, kids. Shop as much as you damn please."

We perused the racks of clothes, Nami getting visibly happier with each new shirt or blouse.

"Wow, these are good quality," she said appreciatively. "Where do you get these from?"

"Made 'em all myself!" Cranky informed us proudly. "My old bat of a mum was something of a prodigy from the North Blue. The fucker taught me everything she damn well knew."

"And they're pretty cheap, too," I mused, checking the price tag of a shirt. 200 beli for this - that was about 20 dollars, right? A decent bargain.

"Can't find better prices anywhere else in this goddamn town!" our host laughed. "Those buncha greedy idjits trying to feed off of tourists' pockets… Cranky says hell no!"

Nami grinned. "I like your style, Cranky," she said happily, picking out a cute pink shirt. "Oh, this is really nice!"

"Changing room's in the back. There's a boy's and a girl's one."

Scanning the racks, I continued looking for an outfit that would suit me. Eventually, I found a neat set of clothes that I really liked and that felt extremely soft and comfortable. It consisted of a dark green shirt, contrasted by a tan scarf and featuring a fancy, lighter green doublet. I'd added a baldric that I'd found in a barrel filled with accessories to the set as well, which went over the shirt and beneath the doublet. Lastly, I'd selected pants a darker shade of tan than the scarf, with diamond patterns stitched in them, and a pair of slick brown shoes with lighter soles.

I went to don the outfit in the boy's changing room. While I slid the various pieces of clothing on, I examined myself in the mirror. My brown hair, usually parted to the right, had become windswept and somewhat messy after a week on the ocean. My hazel eyes went well with my outfit. A stubby beard was starting to come in as a result of leaving it unattended since arriving here, and I realized I probably needed a shave soon.

While gazing at my own reflection, I flexed my arm, grinning at the larger-than-normal muscles that I saw as a result. Even after only a week, Zoro's intense training regime certainly proved fruitful.

At last, I exited the changing room, grinning as Cranky whistled appreciatively.

"Not fuckin' bad, runt!" he approved, sounding rather pleased. "You clean up well, eh?"

"Think I look like a pirate?" I asked, grinning. The old man laughed.

"Might wanna stay outta that salty-ass bastard Smoker's line o' sight! Though maybe with all that smoke from them cancer sticks he's always got, he wouldn't see ya in the first place! Yahahaha!"

The oval-headed shop owner slapped the desk and chortled at his own joke.

I grinned. Yeah, I really liked Cranky. He seemed like he was one hoot of a guy.

"Not bad, Colt," Nami said, coming out of her own changing room with a pile of clothes in hand. "Is that all you want?"

"Nah, I want a few more things. Don't want to be stuck wearing the same thing every day."

By the end of the shopping trip, I'd picked out six sets of clothes that I could mix and match as I wanted, plus some winter gear for Drum Kingdom. Nami ended up with a pile of bags so huge that, frankly, I didn't understand how the entire damn women's section hadn't been completely emptied. I gaped dumbly at the sheer amount of them and croaked.

"Uh… I'm going to be carrying _that?_"

"Yep!" Nami said cheekily, smirking. "Unless you want to be paying three hundred percent interest on what I'm buying for you."

I gulped. "Uh. Right. No, I'll carry them. Don't, don't worry about that."

The idea of being in debt to Nami terrified me, even though I knew deep down that it'd almost definitely happen to me at some point. At any rate, with our outfits purchased, and with a severe dent taken out of Nami's treasure trove, we left the shop and emerged on the warm street. The orangette checked her watch and shrugged.

"We still have some time to kill, but we might as well head back to the ship and put all of these on it. Or do you want to get some lunch?"

I thought about that for a moment. "Eh, let's just return to the ship. I'm sure Sanji will make us something when everyone's back together again."

"Sounds fine to me," Nami said with a shrug.

We headed back to the ship, and as we walked in silence, enjoying the warm air and salty breeze that rolled through Loguetown, something caught my eye. Or maybe it'd be more accurate to say I picked up on a powerful aura or something. Either way, I turned to look at it and saw someone covered in a long, tan cloak glancing surreptitiously around before ducking into an alley between what looked like a bookstore and a cafe. I stared. Something about him…

Hold, someone suspicious and wearing a tan cloak in Loguetown? It could be either Buggy or one of his crew members, or...

I dropped the bags I was carrying, Nami turning to me with a surprised protest.

"I'll be right back!" I said quickly, and raced off towards the alleyway.

After a short sprint, I caught up to just a bit behind the stranger. As I approached, he paused and turned ever so slightly my way. I felt a wave of _power_ press against me, and I flinched, suddenly gaining the intense desire to throw up. Bile rose in my throat, and I forced it down painfully. My legs wobbled under the weight of his aura, and I fell to one knee, shaking.

Shit, was this Conqueror's Haki?

"Who are you?" a deep, commanding voice demanded.

"My name is Colt Read!" I squeaked out in response, my face pale and sweaty from the sheer _presence_ of this man's being. "I'm a member of Monkey D. Luffy's crew!"

There was a moment's pause, and then the aura completely went away and the man grinned at me. I couldn't see it due to the cloak and the dark alley, but I could sure as hell _feel_ it. "Luffy's crew?" the man repeated with immense interest.

"Yes." I swallowed down the last of the bile that still threatened to rise up and set my expression firmly. Still trembling, I closed my hands into fists, forced myself to stop shaking, and stood back up. "And you… I only got a brief glimpse of your face, but… you're that Revolutionary, right? Dragon?"

A pause.

"And?"

So I was right. "I have a message that I need you to pass on. It's for your second-in-command, Sabo. I know his past. I heard my captain, Luffy talking about his past and when he mentioned Sabo and described him, well… I realized your Sabo and his Sabo were the same person."

"What!? Luffy?"

"Do you know him?" I asked as though I didn't know the answer.

He laughed. "Yeah! He's my son. ...Oh, I probably shouldn't have told you that. Forget I said it."

"THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!" I barked, dumbfounded. Damn, I could really see how this man was Garp's son now… I sighed and nodded. "Anyway, yeah. Luffy and Sabo were sworn brothers…" I continued, telling Dragon about what had happened and how the two brothers had met on Dawn Island. After I was finished, I took a deep breath. "Luffy really misses Sabo. He and Ace thinks he's dead, too. Please, tell Sabo about this so he'll regain his memory. If it doesn't work, show him Ace and Luffy's bounty posters."

"Regain his memory… how'd you know he had amnesia?" As a ray of light illuminated his face, I could see Dragon narrowing his eyes.

"Well, it was mostly just a guess," I fibbed, sweating bullets. "But an educated one. I guessed that there had to be some reason why he wasn't contacting Luffy or Ace if he was still alive, and considering how his boat had been blown up by a cannonball, well…"

"...I see," Dragon, apparently accepting that explanation, said. "You've certainly given me a lot to think about, young man. Thank you. I think Sabo will be happy to finally know and remember who he used to be."

"Um, also, if it's not too rude of me to ask, why are you here?" It had been something that always bugged me back home. How convenient it was that Dragon had showed up at the exact place and time where Luffy had been the most in danger of death in the entire series!

Dragon grinned. "Is it wrong for a father to want to see his son off on his great adventure?"

"Uh… well, no, but…" I tilted my head in confusion. "How'd you know we'd be here on this island today?"

"I didn't," Dragon replied with a chuckle. "I've been waiting here since Axe-Hand Morgan was taken down!"

...Oh.

Well. That made sense, at least. Still though, didn't that leave his army unattended? I winced as I thought how crazy something like that might get. Did Sabo, Koala and Hack have enough control over everybody? Or had Dragon been running operations from Loguetown?

Eh, it wasn't worth much thought, honestly. Sighing, I smiled. "Well, in any case, it was cool meeting you, Dragon, but I've got to return to my crewmate!"

"Don't keep them waiting," Dragon said with a hint of humor.

I nodded and, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by the fact that, _holy shit, I'd just had a conversation with MOTHERFUCKING DRAGON_, I stepped back shakily, then turned and ran back out of the alley.

When I had left the alley, I allowed myself a few moments' breather, just to get myself back in a normal state of mind. I leaned against the wall of the cafe shop that made up one side of the alley, resting and wiping sweat from my brow. Shit, I'd been more terrified than I'd thought. And that Conqueror's Haki… damn, that had been some _powerful _bullshit.

I'd probably have nightmares of that Haki for several days.

Hoo boy. Breathe in, breathe out… you're okay, the big, scary man isn't going to use his thinking powers on you anymore…

"There you are, Colt." I looked up and Nami stood there with the shopping bags in hand, frowning. She put her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow. "What happened to you? You look like crap."

"Saw somebody I thought I knew," I replied, shivering. Then I lied, "It wasn't who I thought it was."

Nami pursed her lips. "...Okay? Whatever. Carry these again, they're heavy." She shoved the bags into my arms and I fumbled around with them before getting a good grip on them.

And so we once more headed off to our ship.

But of course, we didn't get more than a few blocks, before gossip spread around the Loguetown citizens that we picked up on. And that gossip was…

"Hey, did you here Buggy the Pirate is going to be executing Straw Hat Luffy?"

Nami and I froze in shock, turning to listen intently.

"Eh!? You mean that clown guy with the big nose?"

"Yeah! He's got Straw Hat trapped on Roger's platform!"

"No way!"

"A fifteen million beli bounty taking down a thirty million beli one? How'd that happen?"

Nami and I turned to each other in horror, then at last gasped, "LUFFY!?" Shit, I thought I'd avoided this by disguising Luffy as a girl! What the hell!?

"Colt!" Nami glared daggers at me. "What the hell!?"

I shook my head in stupified protest. "Don't look at me! I'm just as confused as you! How could anyone have recognized her like _that_?" I dropped the bags on the ground, then looked around for something to touch. "Nami, do you have anything unimportant?"

"Why?"

"I need to switch places with Luffy, then quickly switch places back here with something else!"

Nami paused, then dug into her pocket and offered me a beli coin. "I hate having to waste a coin like this, but use this!" I snatched it from her and dropped it on the ground rapidly.

"Thanks!" I imagined Luffy in her female form, and _tugged_. "Switch-Switch Teleport!"

...Nothing.

What the hell!? What… I knew for a fact it could work with humans! I'd switched places with one of the pirates who'd captured me while testing out my powers during my captivity! What the fuck!? What was going on? Shit!

"Colt!?" Nami asked worriedly.

"No juice!" I gulped, shaking my hands furiously. "Come on! Work, work, work! Switch-Switch Teleport!" _Tug_. Nothing. "Switch-Switch Teleport!" _Nothing_. "DAMMIT! Switch-Switch Teleport!"

My panicked screaming started to earn me some looks from the other pedestrians. I didn't care, and kept trying to use my powers, but they just weren't responding. Why not!? I couldn't understand! Had Dragon's Haki fucked me up so badly that it threw my powers out of whack!? Could Haki even do that!? What the hell!?

"Colt, come on!" Nami exclaimed, grabbing me by the collar and shaking me. "If your powers aren't working, we'll just have to run to the platform. We don't have any time to waste!"

"...Dammit!" I cursed, and looped my fingers around the handles of our many bags of clothes, picking them up with a strained groan. "You're right. Let's go."

We raced off, my doublet blowing back in the breeze as we moved as fast as possible.

All the while, I wondered aggravatedly, Luffy, how the hell did you get yourself into this mess?

~o~

Standing on the execution platform, one Monkey D. Luffy laughed as she gazed out across the area. It had taken her a fairly decent time to find her way here, but at last! She had found her goal! And it was SUPER COOL! The view was amazing, and she could practically feel the history and awesomeness rolling off of the top of the platform like waves. It had the same sensation as when she'd first set out to sea.

"Man, this is awesome!" she exclaimed to herself, tipping Hat down lower so that it shielded the bright sun from her eyes. "I wonder why they banned it? Banning something this cool is dumb."

Below her, an annoyed and exasperated Marine called up to her to get down, and to buckle up her vest.

She ignored him. And what was with people telling her to buckle up her vest, anyway?

Suddenly, the same feeling that had come over her when Colt had used her powers returned. Luffy blinked and suddenly realized her chest was much lighter. She looked down and… oh. "She" was a guy again. He stared for a few short beats.

Huh.

Then Luffy shrugged even as, down below, the Marine's jaw dropped and he passed out from the pure unexpectedness of the pirate captain changing from a woman back to a man. (You kinda had to forgive the poor guy. He was, really, just a janitor for the Marines and had never been on the Grand Line, so he didn't have the same kind of tempered experience with Devil Fruit Bullshit that others did.) Unconcerned, Luffy returned to his previous antics.

That was, until quite suddenly, someone had jumped on him from behind and pinned him down.

"Eh!? What the hell!?" he cried in surprise, squirming.

"Straw Hat!" a dimly familiar voice Luffy didn't quite recognize yelled triumphantly, as though he'd won a tournament. "I have found you at last! Prepare to die!"

Luffy blinked. "...Oh."

Well. This was happening.


	4. Unexpected Butterflies

**Chapter 4: Unexpected Butterflies**

"Ah, Captain!"

Captain Smoker looked up from the stack of papers he was sorting through at the happy exclamation from his trusted, albeit clumsy Sergeant Major. The blue-haired swordswoman stood in the doorway of his office, looking rather disheveled and pink-faced. The seasoned sea veteran nodded at the girl.

"Tashigi. You've been gone for a while."

The woman frowned. "I met a strange man while I was out today. He was at a sword shop, and came across a cursed sword. He threw it up in the air and held his arm out, but instead of the blade cutting his arm off, it missed him entirely. I don't know whether he was extremely brave or extremely stupid." By the sound of her voice, she seemed frustrated by the fact that she couldn't figure out which it was.

Smoker hummed. "I met someone strange myself today while I went out hunting a group of pirates that had landed here. She was a young woman in a straw hat who wanted to see the execution platform."

"The execution platform?" Sergeant Major Tashigi repeated, furrowing her brow in confusion. "Why would a young woman want to go to a place like that?"

Smoker frowned and leaned back in his chair, tapping one of his cigars. "I don't know," he said after a moment. "But she said that she had a crew. And then she disappeared a moment after I took my eyes off of her. I don't know if it's anything important, but I haven't been able to find any bounties with her on them…"

Tashigi thought about that for a moment. Something about that story made her forgetful mind ding in recognition… what was it…?

Oh! Right! "Ah, we have new bounty posters," she reported.

"New bounties?" That caught Smoker's attention.

"HQ was a little late getting them into us because of management issues, but there's at least one new bounty from East Blue in the stack. I'll be right back!" Tashigi dashed out of the smokey room and, a few minutes later, returned with a stack of updated and new bounty posters. "Here!"

She went over to his desk and sat the stack in front of him. Smoker frowned at the papers, picked them up and started shifting through them.

Hm… some upstart with a Devil Fruit in South Blue caused enormous damage, giving him a 27,000,000 beli starting bounty… Very impressive, but irrelevant to his search. Some big-hatted young man from the North Blue stole a large sum of money from a Marine base, earning a bounty of 24,000,000… No, no… nothing there, either…

Just when Smoker was starting to think it was a waste of time, he came across a bounty that made him pause. The pirate depicted in it was little more than a boy of seventeen, but he had somehow defeated Arlong and several others, netting him a bounty of a whopping 30,000,000 beli; one of the highest starting bounties in the Blues that Smoker had ever seen. And the boy in the photo looked extremely familiar… something about the way he smiled, or his eyes, or that straw hat…

Wait.

Straw hat?

He froze, his mind's eye replacing the picture of the smiling boy with the girl, eager for adventure, he'd met in the alley. No way. It was the same hat, with the same red band around it… or at the very least, an incredibly similar hat… Even more telling, they both wore red vests as well as the hat. And their eyes…

He licked his lips dryly, extremely confused. He glanced over where Tashigi waited for him to say something. "Tashigi. Is Ivankov still in Impel Down?"

"...As far as I know, sir," she said, surprised. She adjusted her glasses. "I haven't heard that he's escaped. Why?"

"This boy…" he murmured, flapping the bounty in his hand and tapping it. "He looks incredibly similar to the girl I met earlier… uncannily similar. I thought that… but if Ivankov's still locked up, then there's no way they can be…" He hesitated, mulling it over. "Identical twins, maybe?" he concluded to himself at last.

"Sir?"

He didn't get much time to think about it, however, because a moment later, a panicked shout of "CAPTAIN!" echoed down the hall and one of his subordinates burst through the door, panting and sweating nervously. "Captain Smoker! Sir! Oh, and Sergeant Major Tashigi!" He bowed rapidly first to Tashigi, then to Smoker. "Pardon my intrusion, sir! I have urgent news!"

Smoker narrowed his eyes. "Speak, soldier."

"Yes, sir! Pirates have taken over the square, sir! They even destroyed the fountain! It's Iron Club Alvida, Buggy the Clown, and Straw Hat Luffy! All big-name bounties!"

"Straw Hat!?" Smoker repeated, growling, and he glared down at the poster in his hand again. Sure enough, beneath the picture was the name of the pirate and his epitaph… Monkey D. 'Straw Hat' Luffy.

"Yes sir! It appears as though Buggy the Clown is attempting to publicly execute Straw Hat Luffy, sir!"

What the hell?

"Smoker?" Tashigi said nervously.

Smoker punched the desk furiously. "Right under my nose…?" He paused a moment, then glared out the nearest window. "Thank you, soldier. You are dismissed." His subordinate hurriedly departed from the office. "Tashigi."

The young woman stood at attention, her gaze firm and strong. "Yes, sir!"

"Gather as many of our men as you can and relay these orders to them: Conceal yourselves near the square. Let these pirates complete their execution. When Straw Hat's head falls, attack from all sides. Do not allow a single pirate to leave this island."

Tashigi nodded and saluted. "Sir, yes sir!"

Smoker growled and crunched Luffy's bounty in his hands, tossing it aside. He didn't know what was going on here on this island, but he wasn't going to let any pirate escape with their lives or at least their freedom.

He would make sure of that.

~o~

I raced through the streets of Loguetown as fast as my feet could carry me. Faster, in fact; I had switched out my bodies' recovery abilities for the ability to run at increased speeds. I'd also done the same for Nami, except she had ran off to protect the ship in case the Buggy Pirates had sent someone to burn it, as I vaguely remembered them doing in canon.

I called the technique "Switch-Switch Godspeed." Because of it, we moved as fast as cheetahs; the buildings and people around me zipped by in a blur, and I nearly mowed over several pedestrians. I could only assume the same was true for Nami, wherever in the city she was. It put an incredible strain on me, however, and I could feel all my muscles burning as a result. Even though I covered more ground far quicker, I felt as though I were trudging through mud in sneakers for several thousand meters. Really, if adrenaline born from the need to protect Luffy hadn't been coursing through my veins, I would've already passed out several minutes ago.

At least I wasn't carrying our shopping bags anymore. Since Nami had returned to the ship, she'd taken them off my hands.

"Owowowow," I'd howled when I first used the technique, utilizing every curse I knew as the wind billowed my doublet like a cape behind me. "This hurts like a herd of cows decided to start tap dancing on my legs!"

While we prepared to go our separate ways, Nami had glanced over to me with furrowed brows. "Really? I don't feel any pain at all."

"Yeah, well, f-fuck… you… too!" I'd panted, grimacing as I darted off and pushed through the agony. "Jesus cornholing Christ, this burns!"

Dimly, I noted how both Nami and Luffy had been unaffected by the pain I seemed to feel when switching some aspect of my body. That both made me incredibly jealous and incredibly confused. I wondered if my usage of my Devil Fruits only put my own body through stress.

I distantly wondered if I was going the right way, but it was Nami who had given me directions to the square, and I recalled her studying a map of Loguetown while we'd spent the week traveling here. If I couldn't trust her directions, whose could I trust?

I frowned worriedly.

Nami had never said that the atmospheric pressure was changing and a storm was coming. Plus, I couldn't feel the wind changing and the clouds didn't seem to be growing darker. Had I somehow done something to mess things up? If no storm came, then Buggy's sword wouldn't attract a bolt of lightning, and it wouldn't save Luffy. Luffy would-!

An image of a sword severing my captain's head from her body made me shudder. No way would I allow that to happen!

But what could cause the storm to not arrive? Was it Dragon's doing after all, then? Had me meeting Dragon somehow caused him to not start a storm at this time, presumably with whatever Devil Fruit he'd eaten?

"Come on, come on," I pleaded down at my legs. "Move faster, you fucking muscles!"

I rounded a corner and emerged on a larger street that appeared to be the main road. In the distance, I could see the execution platform. I'd nearly made it! Then, out of nowhere, half of my pain suddenly vanished, and it surprised me so much I momentarily stopped paying attention to where I was going.

An angry cry rang out. "Hey, watch ou-!"

It came a moment too late. With a solid _whumpf_, I collided with a quickly running man's back. The person let out a stream of curses as we tumbled to the ground in a mess of green clothes and limbs. We skidded several feet before stopping due to my increased speed.

I rubbed my throbbing head as I tried to recover from my sudden crash. My head hurt like a bitch from where I'd slammed it right into the other person's surprisingly strong and muscled back.

"Who the hell…?" the other person growled, and their voice felt super familiar to me. I blinked. Wait a minute.

I hastily untangled myself from them, got to my feet, and looked down at them as they also started to stand back up. "Zoro?"

"Colt?" My green-clad first mate stared at me in surprise for several moments. "Where'd you come from?"

"I was just... on my way to the execution platform to... save Luffy," I panted, wiping sweat from my brow as my chest heaved. "Nami's… headed off… to protect the ship." I frowned and decided to switch to my female form. Oh, that felt so much better! The pain in my legs melted away, leaving behind only some of the agony that had just been there. I sighed in relief.

Zoro then blinked multiple times. "That never gets any less weird," he muttered with a mystified shake of his head. Then he snapped his fingers. "Oh, I got you some swords. They're not named blades, but they're still good quality." He reached down on his hip, where five swords instead of the usual three hung on his sash, and handed two to me. I gripped them tightly in my hands and stared in awe. They were a lot weightier than my previous wooden practice swords, but lighter than I'd imagined and almost felt as though they were made with me in mind.

"I thought… they'd be heavier."

Zoro grunted, pleased. "I have a pretty good eye for what the right blade would be for each person. Those should be just the right weight and grip for you."

"Thanks," I said, swallowing and sliding their sheaths into their place on my baldric.

"Oi!" a shout made us all look behind us, and as a result, we saw Sanji and Usopp rushing up to us. It was Sanji calling out. "There you guys are! Did you hear that Buggy and Alvida are here!?"

"And they're gonna execute Luffy!" Usopp added, horrified.

I nodded, my lips curled into a tight frown. "Yeah. We were just on our way to stop the execution."

Sanji and Usopp, carrying a humongous fish that was so long they both had to hold it up, finally reached our group and stopped.

I frowned. "Okay… everybody's here. And if we all already know about this, then I'm sure the Marines here know too. If I were a gambling man, and I am, I'd bet they're all attempting to launch a sneak attack at the square."

"Right," we all said with a nod.

"Colt, Sanji," Zoro decided firmly. "Let's rescue that moron. Usopp, you keep carrying that… giant fish."

Sanji nodded. "That makes sense. You and I are the strongest fighters, and Colt can use his powers to save Luffy." Then we were all silent for a few moments. "Actually, Colt…" He hesitated, realizing I was in my female body. He blushed furiously, grimaced and looked away. "Ah, can you use them from here?"

"I don't know," I growled. "They weren't working earlier." Then I blinked as I realized, wait. The lingering effects of Dragon's Conqueror's Haki weren't as bad as they had been ten minutes ago. "Actually… though, maybe now…? "

I took out the beli from earlier, having stored it in my pocket, and tossed it on the ground. "Switch-Switch Teleport!"

_Tug._

Suddenly I was several blocks away, at the top of the execution platform and trapped under the top half of one of those headlocks. The square was weirdly silent, although laughter from above me made me look up to see a self-satisfied Buggy and Cabaji.

"Yahahaha! You, King of the Pirates, even though you're stuck here and about to…!?" Buggy was shouting, his arms raised in triumph… only to look down and for his voice to trail off. "Wait. Who the hell are you!? Some brown-haired lady's flashily here all of a sudden!?"

I blinked and waved my hand as much as I could since my arm was also stuck. "Yo. Name's Colt."

Buggy stared dumbly. I dimly noted that his nose was very large and very red, even as he muttered, "...Weird name for a girl… But then, I know about weird names. See, my parents named me Buggy because…" He paused suddenly and then glowered at me. "Wait! Why I am telling you a story!? What I mean is, what happened to that flashy Gum-Gum bastard!? He was right there where you are now just a moment ago!"

_Him_? What the hell? "Oh. I rescued he… him."

"E-Eh? Rescued…?"

I rolled my eyes. "Devil Fruit powers." I imagined the beli coin lying on the ground several blocks away from the square, back on the main street of the town. "Switch-Switch Teleport!"

_Tug._

And just as suddenly as I'd appeared, I was back with my friends.

Huh. Well, that worked better than I'd expected it to. I glanced back at Usopp, Sanji, and Zoro, who stared at me with wide eyes. Luffy sat beside me, male again for some reason and laughing his head off.

"Man!" he giggled, patting me on the back. "Thanks for saving me, Colt!"

"...Your powers are _extremely_ useful," Sanji decided.

Zoro shook his head at me, raising an eyebrow. "I wish you'd been with us earlier," he ground out. "So much of Luffy's bullshit could have been stopped…"

"Shishishi!"

"Well, in any case," I said, grunting and picking myself up off the ground. "Let's all escape. I bet the Marines will be hot on our tails any time now."

"Right!"

~o~

"I'M THE MAN… WHO'LL BE _KING OF THE PIRATES_!"

With that statement from the man trapped on the execution platform, shocked silence reigned over the square. This silence became even more shocked when, suddenly, the pirate about to be executed was replaced with a completely new woman, who disappeared moments later, just as suddenly. Equally as shocked as everyone else, Smoker felt his jaw drop.

That man had been about to be executed, but he hadn't looked the least bit concerned. And then… whatever that clearly Devil Fruit-caused nonsense had happened.

What on Earth was going on here?

"Smoker, what do we do?" Tashigi asked while, over at the platform, a shocked Buggy freaked out angrily over his stolen chance at revenge.

The captain growled. "I'll finish off Buggy myself," he decided. "Then we'll chase after the pirates. They must be trying to return to their ship. We'll head them off before they reach the docks."

Luffy had somehow escaped death at the execution platform, presumably with that brown-haired girl's powers, but he and his crew wouldn't be escaping this island - not on Marine Captain Smoker's watch!

~o~

"_My… my head hurts… but I'm… I'm remembering so much! Please, tell me more about what he said!"_

"Hm… okay. After that, you, Ace and my son went out and lived in the jungle for a while, training on your own…"

While he happily recounted the tale he'd heard from the strange brown-haired boy, salty, happy tears spilled out of the Den-Den Mushi's eyes, and sobs of joy filled the alley.

~o~

Standing in the crowd in the square, one man stared in awe at the execution platform where the most impactful event in his life had just occurred. His body trembled, his eyes watered, and he felt an indescribable inspiration spreading through him, as warm as a campfire's heat against your hands on a cold winter's night.

He hadn't expected much from today. It had been a pretty boring day, really, until he caught wind of the execution happening here in the square. Interested, he'd headed over and watched as a boy with a straw hat struggled against the restraining block trapping him in place. The pirate who had trapped him, Buggy, gloated and loudly asked him whether he had any final words. Then, with a smile that shook the man to his very core, the pirate about to be executed, Straw Hat Luffy, shouted, "I'M THE MAN WHO'LL BE KING OF THE PIRATES!"

And then, so suddenly that it took a moment to register, a girl had appeared in Straw Hat's place, had a short conversation with Buggy he couldn't hear, and disappeared just as suddenly as she'd arrived.

The man ran a hand through his tall, green hair, unsure of how exactly to react. He felt as though he wanted to leap into the air, punch at the sky, holler with excitement. He felt a sudden yearning for the sea, despite spending his entire life here with the dregs of Loguetown's society.

Most of all, he knew that the man who smiled and stated his dream with pure conviction on the execution platform was his hero.

He stood, trembling, for just a few more moments before finally throwing his arms up into the air and shouting, "So cool! LUFFY-SENPAI!" Then, as an afterthought, he added, "And whoever you are, girl who saved him-senpai!"

~o~

I sneezed.

"Someone must be talking about me," I concluded, wiping my nose with my sleeve.

Usopp side-eyed me. "Who would be talking about you, exactly?"

I opened my mouth in retort, then paused. "Actually, good point. I have no idea."

We ran as fast as we could down Main Street, without the use of Switch-Switch Godspeed this time. I'd attempted to hasten everyone using it, but by the third Straw Hat I'd used it on, my vision swam and I almost passed out, so Luffy bopped the top of my head with a frown until I turned it off on everyone.

"No hurting yourself so bad you almost pass out just so we can get away!" Luffy had commanded me, hands folded across his chest as he pouted like I was a stupid idiot.

"Yes, captain," I'd said blandly, waiting for him to stop bopping me on the head. He did, but only after a final bop for good measure.

In any case, now we were running towards where we'd left the Merry, on a shore a good distance away from the town. We hadn't yet escaped the city limits, but we were well on our way to doing so.

"Man with the green hair… Stop where you are!"

Luffy blinked. "Eh?"

Ahead of us, a somewhat tall young woman with short, blue hair stood several hundred feet ahead of us, directly in our path. Tashigi glared at Zoro and unsheathed her sword. "I had no idea you were a pirate! You lied to me! To be running with a gang like this, what else could you be? I can't let the Wado Ichimonji remain in the hands of criminals like you any longer!"

Sanji gasped at Zoro. "Eh!? You lied to this beautiful woman, bastard!? What the hell, Zoro!?"

"Shut up, love cook," Zoro deadpanned. While we paused to catch our breath, he stepped forward, one hand on the hilt of Wado Ichimonji. He looked at Tashigi with a shrug. "It's not like I lied to you. You just never asked my name or occupation."

Tashigi, meanwhile, looked like her world had just been turned over on itself. "Did he just say… Zoro!? Not only are you a pirate, but you're Roronoa Zoro!?" She furiously pointed her blade at our first mate. "Fight me right here, right now! I'll take that sword from your hands!"

"Oi, what did you do to her, bastard!?" Sanji demanded.

Zoro sighed. "I didn't do anything. But if a fight is what you want, woman," he added, smirking and unsheathing his sword, "then just try to take it from me!"

"Oi, oi, oi, do we have time for this?" Usopp asked worriedly, panting from the effort of carrying that big fish with Sanji.

Pirate hunter and Marine rushed at each other and clashed swords, and the clang of steel-on-steel rang out into the street. Sanji looked furious that Zoro had went for the attack on a woman, and made to interfere, but Tashigi glared at him.

"Don't get between us! This is a fight between me and Zoro! If I can't win on my own terms, it will mean nothing to me!"

"You heard the woman," Zoro agreed.

Sanji frowned. "If you hurt her, I'll kick you into next week, you hear?"

We raced onward, leaving them to their duel. Our feet pounded against the pavement, our arms swinging at our sides in pace with the movement of our feet. My boobs rubbed against my dark green shirt, and I had the brief thought that I should've bought a bra or two. As we pushed forward down the street and further towards the shore, I felt a breeze pick up unnaturally quickly, and the air temperature chilled significantly. Surprised, my head tilted up and I looked at the clouds; many of them had turned grey and were covering the otherwise baby blue sky.

"There's a storm," I announced in surprise, even as a flash of lightning produced a booming clap of thunder that echoed into our ears moments later.

"What!?" Usopp cried in surprise, nearly tripping over his own two feet in surprise. Sanji cursed due to almost dropping their giant fish as a result. The bandanna-wearing man regained his feet hastily. "T-This soon!? And even thunder!? It was clear skies just a minute ago!"

Sanji glanced up at the sky, too, eyes widening. "How on Earth…?"

"If you think this is shocking, just wait until the Grand Line," I snarked, even as I tried to think of why the storm would be coming this late. Had it been caused by Dragon after all, then? Or had everything somehow just happened earlier than canon, so the storm was on time but everything else was sooner? I mean, the most likely theory was the former, but it was something to at least think about.

Usopp shot me a look of pure terror. "W-W-W-What do you mean, wait for the Grand Line!?"

I grinned evilly. "_Well_, this is only stuff that I've _heard_… but massive typhoons popping up out of nowhere, icebergs appearing from thin air, huge bottomless pits in the middle of the ocean… All of this and more is apparently there!"

The long-nose was so pale he looked as though he'd died, come back to life, then died again. "I think I've caught _I don't want to go to this ocean_ disease," he whimpered.

"Colt, stop terrorizing our sniper," Sanji deadpanned.

"But it's fun!"

"_Colt._"

I pouted and waggled my eyebrows at him. "Awww, let a girl have her fun?"

His face went _red_. "YOU'RE A _GUY_ AND YOU EVEN IDENTIFY AS A GUY IN THAT FORM!" he barked furiously, although I noticed with satisfaction that he _pointedly_ looked anywhere but at me.

"Temptress," Usopp accused, narrowing his eyes at me. "_Temptress_!"

Luffy just laughed happily. "So it's mystery weather!"

"Pretty much!" I confirmed.

"STOP ENABLING HIS STUPIDITY!" Usopp and Sanji both exclaimed.

Meanwhile, darkness fell over the city as the grey storm clouds completely blocked out the sky. Rain droplets fell one by one, although they quickly grew in number. What began as a slight drizzle became, within half a minute, a torrent of water. Within seconds, it completely soaked me to the bone. My clothes grew heavier with the weight of water added to them, and they stuck to my skin annoyingly.

While I tugged with frustration at my matted-down clothes, Luffy's confused voice rose over the rain and occasional thunder. "Hey, who's that?"

I glanced up, and a fair distance ahead of us, a tall, broad-shouldered silhouette loomed in our path. The person blocking our exit from the city carried a long, cylindrical weapon and stood in front of what looked like a large three-wheeled motorbike.

I pursed my lips. I knew who this was…

As we drew closer, the figure became clearer, and we all saw an intimidating with minty hair, a hard glare, two cigars in his mouth, and a white jacket with green fur around the neck and wrists. He frowned at us as he tapped his jutte on the streets.

"Whoa, he looks scary!" Usopp gulped.

Luffy blinked in recognition. "Ah! I know you! You're… Smokey!"

"Smokey?" Smoker narrowed his eyes. "So I was right, then… where's your twin, Straw Hat!? Why isn't she with you!?"

Luffy blinked and tilted his head. "...Twin? Are you stupid?"

Smoker stared. From his slightly dumbfounded look, I thought that maybe he was wondering, _Did this pirate really just call a Marine Captain stupid? _A few moments passed, during which we paused, not wanting to get too close to him.

"Guys," I said, narrowing my eyes at Smoker. "Be very careful. We probably can't win this fight."

"Eh?" Sanji frowned at me. "What do you mean?"

I took a second to breathe; damn, all this cardio… "From what I heard from some of the locals, that guy ate a Devil Fruit, the Plume-Plume Fruit, which allows him to turn into smoke. We won't be able to touch him."

"Eh?" Luffy wrinkled his nose. "That's no fun. How am I supposed to punch him?"

"You're not," I deadpanned. "Or rather, you just can't. That's the entire point."

Luffy picked his nose, frowning. "Hmmm."

Smoker gaped. "You're picking your nose at a time like this?" he asked, disbelief obvious in his voice. After a moment, he shook himself out of his stupor and frowned. "Whatever. In any case, it doesn't matter if you tell me where she is or not. None of you pirates will be getting off this island with your freedom."

"No," Luffy said.

I facepalmed. Smoker stared again, and then said, "No?"

"No," Luffy repeated. "I don't like that option. So no. We're going to the Grand Line, and we're going to find the One Piece, and I'm going to become King of the Pirates."

"...That's not an option you have," Smoker informed him flatly. "I'm going to capture you, and the only way you're going to leave this island is if you're going to a prison somewhere else, or if you're dead."

My captain shrugged. "And I said no," he replied firmly.

Smoker sighed. "Fine. Then I'll show you how you have no option. White Blow!" The Marine's arms turned to smoke right before our eyes, and the smoke shot forward at us with impressive speed. Sanji and Usopp stared in shock and tried to run out of the way, and Luffy's eyes bulged out of his head as he stretched a hand over to the top of a roof somewhere in an attempt to rocket himself to safety; I gulped and, on instinct, switched places with the closest thing to me that I'd touched.

"Switch-Switch Teleport!"

_Tug_.

Suddenly, I was back on the top of the execution platform where I'd left the beli after saving Luffy. My breath came out jaggedly as I panicked, realizing Smoker had almost caught me. If he'd pressed that tip of his jutte down on me, well, there wouldn't have been much I could have done at that point. But shit, what else could I do now? How could I stop Smoker from capturing Luffy, Sanji, and Usopp, and allow us to get away safely? Would Dragon come on time?

Think, think… how could I protect everyone? Was there anything on this island I could use? Someone else other than Dragon?

I blinked. Wait a moment.

Bartolomeo! Bartolomeo was right here in Loguetown; even better, he'd been at this very town square during the execution! With a little luck, he'd probably still be here! Hoping against all hope I was right - _what if Dragon didn't come, what if Dragon didn't come, need a backup plan -_ I scanned the crowd of people still present in the square despite the rain.

Things seemed to have settled down here. The Marines had taken over the square, capturing the Buggy Pirates in one big net. Some civilians still hung around the edges of the square, huddled and seemingly chattering with excitement over the events that had just proceeded here minutes earlier.

Come on, come on…

Marines, civilians, some big buff guy who was probably a dock worker, someone who looked like they belonged on the Baratie, more random civilians, someone's really wet, annoyed dog, a random piece of bread, more civilians, a guy with tall, green hair jumping up and down and pumping his fists in the air, more civilia-

Wait…

A guy with tall, green hair?

"Bartolomeo!" I gasped in relief. Thank fuck. Now the only problem was getting down from this platform! ...Wait. Fuck, how _was_ I going to get down from this platform? Uhhh… Huh. I didn't think this through very well.

I looked down on the rest of the platform itself. Was there anything up here that I could use?

Oh. As it turned out, yes, there was. The big old block that had been used to trap Luffy and keep him still while Buggy tried to chop his head off. Buggy and Cabaji had apparently left it here after Luffy and I escaped. Convenient! I picked up the block and tossed it off the platform after checking to make sure no one was in its path. Unfortunately, it _may_ have gotten blown off course by the increasingly strong winds and grazed the side of a Marine's face, knocking him out cold and giving him a massive headache whenever he woke up.

I definitely wasn't just saying that because I have terrible aim.

"Switch-Switch Teleport!" I called, wincing and saying a silent apology to the Marine I'd unintentionally clobbered with the wooden block. I switched places with the block, then before I could draw too much attention, quickly dashed into the crowd.

I picked through the civilians en route to Bartolomeo, trying not to jostle too many people around unnecessarily. At last, I again spied the tall, green hair indicative of the barrier man and dashed up to him. "Hey!" I said, drawing up close to him and panting - damn cardio. "You're Bartolomeo, right?"

That brought him out of his starry-eyed cheering. He glanced down at me with a frown. "Yeah? And what's it to…" He paused mid-sentenced, and I blinked. "AH! YOU'RE THE GIRL WHO SAVED LUFFY-SENPAI! SO COOL!"

I blinked again. "...Eh?"

Before I quite realized what was happening, Bartolomeo had knelt down on the ground and was… uh… kissing the ground before my feet? "Why is someone as cool as you visiting a lowly gang leader like me!?"

"E-Eh?" I repeated again, completely lost. "Wait, what… why… uh, why exactly do you think I'm so cool?"

He looked up seriously at me. "You're a member of Luffy's crew, and you obviously have Devil Fruit powers. Of course you're cool!"

I blinked yet again. "...Okay." Honestly, I probably should've expected as much. But hey, I was allowed to be an idiot every now and again. "Well. Anyway, I heard about you and your powers from the locals, and thought you could help me."

His smile was so wide I thought it would pop right off his face. "I can help you!? What do you need help with, girl-who-saved-Luffy-senpai!?"

Facepalming, I told him, "Okay, first of all, I'm a guy. My powers are only making me a girl right now. Second, my name's Colt. Third, Luffy and my other friends are in a fight with Smoker and need your powers."

"I'll help!" Bartolomeo declared, standing up and saluting. "I will do whatever I can for Luffy-senpai, Colt-senpai!"

...I needed a Staples button because, well, that was easy. Now, then… uh, well, I hoped this would work, anyway. I put my hand on Bart's shoulder. "Alright, now, I haven't tried this before, but I'm going to try teleporting both of us back to my friends at the same time. Switch-Switch Dual Teleport!"

_Tug_.

Owowowow! _Owowowowow!_

Pain erupted in my head, a horrible headache stabbing through my brain. It felt as bad as when I had first tried to use Switch-Switch Sixty Three. I let out a howl of agony, disturbed citizens around us glancing our way worriedly. After a moment, however, we had vanished from the square, and once more appeared in the street before Smoker, who had Luffy locked down on the ground in a plume of smoke and underneath the jutte. Sanji, Usopp, and the fish had also been trapped by the smoke.

Smoker looked up upon our arrival. "You're back," he growled, narrowing his eyes. "And you brought a friend."

"You didn't think I'd just let you capture my captain after I saved him from execution, did you?" I said. "What kind of scumbag do you take me for? Who'd save their captain and then abandon them?"

Bartolomeo wiped his eyes. "You're so cool, Colt-senpai, you really are!"

Smoker raised an eyebrow. "You look like you're going to faint, though."

"Yeah, well," I said, woozily, "I, uh, haven't really… gotten good experience with more advanced applications of my Devil Fruit powers yet…"

"No matter. White Blow!"

Bartolomeo crossed his arms in an x and then crossed his fingers. "Bari-Bari Barrier!" A light-blue, see-through barrier popped into existence before him and I, wrapping around us in a full downward u-shaped semi-sphere and stopping the smoke from entering.

"Whoa!" Sanji gasped, eyes wide. "That's a strong Devil Fruit power!"

"Ahhh!" Bartolomeo was ecstatic. "A member of Luffy-senpai's crew is praising me! I do not deserve this!"

Usopp and Sanji stared.

"...Who's the fanboy, exactly?" Usopp asked skeptically.

Luffy tilted his head, so confused I could practically see the question marks dancing around his head. "Senpai? I'm a senpai?"

"Just go with it," I deadpanned. I then untied my shoelaces, yanked them out of my shoes, and set them on the floor. "Switch-Switch… uh... Rapid Rescue! Sure! Let's go with that!"

Within the space of barely two seconds, I first switched places with Usopp to get him out of the smoke and behind the barrier, then with one of the shoelaces to return to the inside of the barrier, then with Sanj to get _him _into the barrier, then with the other shoelace, and lastly with Luffy. That was when I realized three things. (1) Switching places with Luffy made it so that now Smoker trapped _me_ under the jutte's seastone tip. (2) I had no way back behind the shield anyway. (3) The seastone's tip draining me of strength was probably not a good thing when I was already dealing with the aftermath of mental stress from Teleporting two people at once in the same switch.

"...I really didn't… think this… through, either…" I murmured groggily as my vision swam.

Smoker's eye twitched. "Your power," he growled, "is very annoying."

"Look in the… goddamn mirror," I growled, blinking as rain fell into my eyes before at last giving up and closing them. "Turning into… smoke? Fucking unfair!"

"Oi, let Colt go, you smokey bastard!" Luffy cried furiously.

"I told you, I'm _not_ letting you pirate scum off this island," Smoker grumbled. "Even if two of you have annoying powers to deal with."

"And how do you plan on getting through this barrier, eh?" Bartolomeo mocked, grinning savagely. "This thing is unbreakable! You couldn't even break it with seven warships! Barrier Crush!"

The barrier reshaped itself from the semi-sphere shape and into a massive wall, which rushed forward at just the right height where it wouldn't hit me, but would still slam into Smoker. Smoker grunted and had to turn into smoke to try and dodge, but as he dodged, the barrier reshaped itself to stretch over where he went to.

"Barrier Prison!" Bartolomeo announced, and squeezed his fingers in a way that I couldn't quite make out, but that caused the barrier to start to close around Smoker's smoke. "You can't touch a gas… but you _can_ contain it!"

"I would like to know why a gang leader is working with pirates," Smoker said, "but that'll have to wait." He managed to escape the barrier prison, although it required him lifting his jutte off of me and bringing it closer to him.

I gasped as strength returned to my body, although I still admittedly felt like crap, and I quickly scrambled to my feet and rejoined the others.

"Wow, that Smokey's quick!" Luffy said, blinking in surprise.

"But how are we going to get around him?" Sanji spat on the ground, annoyed. "He can't be touched, he can capture us easily, and he's fast enough to escape… uh, our new friend's barrier." He raised an eyebrow at Bartolomeo. "Who are you, anyway?"

Bartolomeo grinned. "The name's Bartolomeo. I'm a barrier human who ate the Barrier-Barrier Fruit! I saw Luffy-senpai at the execution platform and thought he was amazing for having the guts to say what he did even though he was about to be killed! And just before we came here, Colt-senpai asked me to help you guys, so here I am."

"Okay," Usopp said raising an eyebrow and then turning to frown at Smoker. "Now… how do we escape from the _very scary smoke man_?"

"I think I can be of service," a familiar deep voice said - Dragon! Before I could turn around to see him, though… before _any_ of us could turn around to see him, a strong wind picked up and raced down the street at us, way stronger than any wind had any right to be. It was so strong, in fact, that it lifted us up into the air and carried us and the fish, howling and screaming, past Smoker on the craziest roller coaster ride we'd ever experienced. I think Usopp was so terrified he passed out.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Sanji gulped. "What's with this crazy wind!?"

Something slammed into him, something large and green.

"Moss-hair!?"

"Swirly-eye!?"

"Shiiiit…" I groaned weakly as the wind spun me over and over dizzily. "This is making… my headache even _worse_… I don't even get motion sickness and I wanna throw up..."

"Oiiii!" Luffy shouted. "I see the Merry out on the shore! Nami brought it close to us!"

"Dammit, we're gonna crash into it at this rate!" Zoro cursed after he had finally moved off of Sanji.

"How fast are we even going on this crazy wind!?" I moaned, forcing bile down my throat. "I don't wanna die, don't wanna die, don't wanna die…"

"EH!?" Nami screamed from somewhere… I couldn't tell which direction. This was due to the fact that I could hardly tell up from down with all the spinning that was going on. "You guys are flying!?"

"AH! Luffy-senpai's ship! So cool!"

"Wait, is that… Bartolomeo's still-!?"

"Oh. We're gonna crash."

"WELL DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, RUBBER-FOR-BRAINS!"

"Gum-Gum Balloon!"

A long arm stretched out and wrapped around me and presumably several others, then retracted to bring us into Luffy's soft, air-filled belly. _Whump_. Seconds and a shrieking woman later, we smacked into what was (again, presumably) the Merry and Luffy bounced up into the air several times before settling on the deck of the ship.

When at last it was over, Luffy let the air whistle out of his mouth as his stomach deflated. His arms let go of us and we toppled to the deck, panting and out of breath. Or, in Usopp's case, still passed out. ...And in the fish's case, dead.

I rose a trembling hand into the air. "Let's never, ever, _ever…_ do that again," I proposed, choking down another round of bile.

A chorus of weak "_Aye aye_'s" rose up from my fellow crewmates plus… Bartolomeo?... except for Luffy.

Wait, Bartolomeo?

I looked up and saw him so awed at being on our ship that he almost looked ready to pull an Usopp and pass out himself. While the wind had already blown our ship away from the island, strong enough that we couldn't return.

Um.

Oops?

~o~

"You…" Smoker stared in shock at the Most Wanted Man on the Planet. He had never expected to see _him_ on this sea, on this island. "What are you doing here? Why did you help those criminals escape? The government's after your head!"

Dragon ignored him, and grinned after the retreating forms of Luffy and his crew (plus the one man Dragon hadn't realized wasn't a part of his son's crew). "So, you chose the life of a pirate… good. I'm glad I finished up my call quickly enough that I was still able to see you off."

Smoker, unable to hear Dragon over the drumming of the rain and the roaring wind, narrowed his eyes. "What's that your saying?"

"It's none of your business, Marine Captain," the leader of the Revolutionary Army laughed. "I just think this generation's youth are remarkably interesting."

Captain Smoker narrowed his eyes, trying to study Dragon's expression. He couldn't tell what the man was thinking. What did he mean?

"Tell me why I shouldn't bring you into the Government instead," he growled, pointing his jutte at Dragon.

The man just grinned. "You? Bring me in? You're a hundred years too early, Smoker. And you can't bring in those kids, either. They still have a long journey ahead of them."

With that certain statement, Dragon turned and walked away down the street, cloak billowing in the wind, as casually and yet dominatingly as though he owned the entire island… no, the East Blue. Smoker gritted his teeth and gripped his jutte with a trembling hand.

In his heart, Smoker knew Dragon was right. He was no match for someone as powerful as _that_ man. He was still too weak. The aura alone that Dragon exuded… it was _strength_. Pure, utter strength. Untouchable. Unapproachable.

But still… it frustrated Smoker to no end. Both Straw Hat and his crew had escaped despite his promise that he wouldn't let any of them do so. He'd failed today. He hadn't completed the mission he'd given himself. And after meeting Dragon, he felt as though he'd gazed into a whole new world of power that he had never been exposed to before, even as a Marine Captain.

Smoker clenched his free hand into a fist and cursed.

He needed to get stronger. If he wanted to capture Straw Hat and his crew, he needed to get strong enough to deal with that annoying teleport power and barrier, which even he had had trouble dealing with. He needed to get even stronger than that, too, if he wanted to continue to help rid the world of pirate scumbags.

And the place where his goal lay… both Straw Hat, and the path to more strength… would all be in one place...

The Grand Line.

After waiting in the rain for several more minutes, Smoker dug into his jacket and pulled out a Den Den Mushi.

He needed to call HQ… _now_.


End file.
